Cheating Death

by April White

  “Why do ye think she left?” he finally asked.

  Something caught my eye on a roof support post and I pulled out my Maglite to take a look. It was a note, folded over and pinned to the wood with a knife. My name was written on it.

  My heart beat faster – in hope, in fear – I wasn’t sure exactly which. I had to pull hard to get the pocketknife out of the wood.

  I showed the knife to Ringo – the swastika on the grip glinted cruelly in the gleam of my Maglite. “If I had to guess, I’d say this is why.”

  Rachel

  The note was written with a fountain pen, and the edges of the paper were yellow with age. Ringo held the light so I could read.

  “It’s dated September 8, 1889.” I read, “Saira, I’m here waiting for you. Come find me. Tom.”

  I stared at Ringo. “This wasn’t here when we came before.”

  He looked grim. “We need to find Rachel.”

  “You don’t think he did anything to her?” I asked. No matter what Tom had become, I refused to believe he would deliberately hurt innocent people.

  Ringo contemplated for a long moment before he finally shook his head. “No, but somethin’ ‘appened, and we need to know what.”

  I read the note again, then stuffed it into my satchel, and folded up the pocketknife and handed it to Ringo. I didn’t want anything to do with a swastika and neither did he because he dropped the knife into a drawer and closed it firmly.

  “Let’s go up to the British Museum first,” he said. Neither of us had even removed our satchels from our shoulders, much less thought of leaving them behind.

  “Hang on a second.” I pulled one of my daggers out of its sheath and cut a line in the wooden support post where we’d found Tom’s note.

  “What’re ye doin’?

  “Leaving a mark. We can figure out which timeline we’re on based on whether it’s here or not.”

  He watched me carve a crowned heart into the wood. “So, that’s it then? That’s yer tag?”

  I stepped back and looked at the mark, then nodded and sheathed my knife. “I’m a Devereux now.”

  “‘E’d be proud to ‘ear ye say it, too,” Ringo said quietly.

  I shoved back the bloom of pain that threatened to fill my eyes with tears. Grief felt self-indulgent when we still had no answer to the question of fixing time, so I exhaled sharply and looked at Ringo. “Right. Let’s go”

  It was full dark when we made our way through bomb-damaged neighborhoods up toward Russell Square. The streets were mostly silent, but here and there people still sat on front steps with neighbors, quietly sharing a single glass of beer or wine. An observer would have seen a desolate landscape with small, bright spots of hope dotting it, and to me, that was community.

  My community was in a place I couldn’t reach, and missing them – my mom, Mr. Shaw, Adam, Ava, Connor, and even Millicent – was like a constant ache in the pit of my stomach. Ringo’s presence next to me was maybe the only thing that kept me moving forward when the instinct to hide under the covers consumed every bit of hope I had.

  We walked without speaking, and I could only guess at the direction his thoughts took. I wondered how much of his brain was occupied with questions about Rachel. He hadn’t talked about her since we left 1944 to go forward, but he hadn’t really talked about Charlie after she went with Valerie Grayson either.

  I was suddenly intensely curious. “Who would you choose, if they were both standing right in front of you?” I finally blurted out boldly.

  He shot me a confused look. “Between ‘Itler and Stalin? What are you askin’, Saira?”

  I sighed dramatically. “You’re usually better at reading my mind.” Then I scowled at him for making me spell it out. “If Charlie and Rachel were both standing right here, what would you do?”

  He thought about it for exactly one second. “Dance a jig to find them both safe.”

  I was beginning to regret the question. “But who would you choose?”

  He shrugged. “Ye, of course.”

  I stared at him. “What? Me? What are you talking about?”

  Ringo stopped and faced me. “I told ye I ‘ad yer back as ye did this thing. Until it’s done and time is fixed, I’m with ye.”

  Oh.

  He started walking again, and it took me a second to make my feet work to catch up. “What then?”

  “Ye mean after ye and Archer are back together?” He shrugged. “I’ll open a bookshop, or a tea shop with books.”

  “You’re serious?”

  “I’ve funds set aside – enough to get set up and see me through the first six months. I’d like to make good on my admittance to the Working Men’s College too, though, if they’ll still ‘ave me.”

  “You got into the Working Men’s College?”

  Ringo nodded. “I was on my way ‘ome from class when Lizzer ‘ad me nabbed, then ye came to get me out of Newgate.”

  I was so surprised I missed a step off the curb, and his hand darted out to stop my fall. “I took you away from college, and you never said anything?”

  He shrugged. “‘Elpin’ ye seemed more important.”

  I tried to say something appropriately effusive, but the words got stuck in the sheer enormity of what Ringo had done for us. I lapsed into silence, and then finally took his hand in mine and held it for a long moment.

  “Thank you,” I whispered.

  He squeezed my hand before he let go, and we rounded the corner at High Holborn St.

  There, where number 133 had previously stood, was a bomb crater the size of a large house.

  I stumbled forward to the edge of the crater. The bigger chunks of broken pavement still hung precariously, though the smaller debris had been cleared already. I couldn’t look at Ringo. I couldn’t bear for him to see how much I had hoped that there’d been no explosion in the British Museum Station – that somehow we’d found our way back onto the true time stream. I turned away and searched the neighboring buildings for something to rest my eyes on that wasn’t damaged or broken.

  A lace curtain fluttered in an open window just as a candle blew out deeper in the room. The last verse of Don’t Fear the Reaper skimmed the surface of my mind, followed by a memory of Aeron’s eyes locked on mine. I shivered at the chill that raised goosebumps on my skin.

  I stepped back from the crater and finally turned to face Ringo. “Where to?”

  His eyes searched mine. He must have sensed my disquiet, but didn’t push. “The temple, I think. Then maybe the residence at Guy’s Chapel if she’s not there.”

  I nodded. “Good ideas.”

  We took off running toward the temple. I needed to get out of my head so I didn’t spend too long spinning on the image of the giant hole in the ground. Ringo kept his thoughts to himself, but he was unusually serious when we finally arrived at the Bevis Marks Synagogue. There were lights on inside, and Ringo knocked loudly on the heavy wooden door.

  After a minute we heard sounds of someone coming, and finally a young man opened the door. I was startled to see him because it seemed like everyone else his age had joined the military.

  “Can I help you?” he asked in one of the most beautiful voices I’d ever heard.

  I felt like a sailor drawn to a siren song, but Ringo tensed and flinched back. “We’re looking for Rachel,” he said.

  The young man studied us for a long moment, then his eyes widened slightly. “You’re her friends from France? Please come in. I’ll get her for you.”

  He stepped back to let us enter, then moved off across the room toward a door at the back. And I realized why he wasn’t fighting the war with the rest of the young men. He had cerebral palsy and dragged one leg while the other foot turned in. Ringo and I shared a quick look of surprise, then stepped into the room and closed the door behind us.

  “If you’ll wait here, I’ll find Rachel,” he said in that beautiful voice. We stopped at the bench where Archer and I had lain and looked up at the chandelier barely two weeks befor
e, but I didn’t sit. It was hard enough to be assaulted with such recent memories of Archer without recreating the view I’d shared with him.

  “I think ‘e’s Other,” Ringo whispered when the door had closed behind the young man.

  “You mean like Charlie sees?”

  Ringo nodded. “She used to point them out to me when she saw them. I started to see signs.”

  I scowled, oddly bothered by his quick conclusion. “He moves that way because of cerebral palsy, not Otherness.”

  Ringo looked surprised for a second, then shook his head. “No, it’s the voice. Charlie used to say the Fae and bastard angels ‘ad voices that made ye weep with the beauty of them.”

  I swiveled toward the closed door the young man had gone through. A bastard angel? What even was that? The door opened and Rachel stepped into the room. She saw us in one breath and was across the floor in the next. She flung herself into Ringo’s arms and then into mine with a great gasp.

  “You came back!” Her voice was nearly a sob, and she peeled herself back reluctantly to look at us. The young man had followed her more slowly and stood just off to one side. Rachel turned to him. “Aviv, this is Saira and Ringo – my friends.”

  The way she spoke to Aviv was equally protective and deferential, and I noticed Ringo tense again. I didn’t think Rachel saw it, but Aviv definitely did, and he regarded Ringo with an unblinking gaze as he held out his hand to shake.

  “You are welcome, Saira and Ringo. Rachel’s friends are friends of the temple,” he said warmly. I was truly captivated by that voice, and it made him someone compelling to watch.

  “Come, sit. There is still milk for tea, and Aviv made bread today. There is no more butter or jam, of course, but Aviv knows a man with gas rations who will take us to the country next week to hunt the rabbits that run from the harvesters.”

  She led us down a hall to a kitchenette where a simple table was draped with a clean white tablecloth, and two cups, saucers, and plates were stacked on the sideboard. Rachel bade us to sit while she fussed with the kettle and sliced thick chunks of bread. It was more generous than I thought most people could be with war rations, but she didn’t even hesitate.

  Rachel chattered on about the work she was doing with children in the temple school. She was teaching French and mathematics, and she had a car to repair with a couple of the older kids. Aviv stood in the doorway of the kitchen while she talked, and Ringo sat so that he could keep an eye on the young man. Rachel invited Aviv to join us, but he declined graciously as she poured the tea. Ringo finally relaxed when Aviv left the room.

  “Did you find what you were looking for?” Rachel asked me, as she blew softly across her teacup.

  I shook my head while I debated how much to say. “Things were … different,” I finally admitted.

  Ringo interrupted my halting words, for which I was grateful, even though it surprised me. “What ‘appened? Why aren’t ye at my flat?” There was an interesting possessiveness to his tone, and my eyes danced between Rachel and Ringo curiously.

  She took a deep, shuddery breath. “I did stay – two nights. But then the third day I woke up, and there was … a knife.” Fear laced her voice and made her eyes go big.

  “The knife was stuck through a piece of paper on a post. I tried to read it, but I couldn’t touch the knife. The handle …” Her hand trembled on her teacup, so she pulled it off the table and hid it in her lap. She looked like a child frightened of having done something wrong, and it broke through Ringo’s strange reserve. He picked up the hand in her lap and held it between his.

  “The man who put it there wasn’t in the flat with you.”

  Oh! I hadn’t even thought that she could imagine such a thing. No wonder she was so terrified.

  Her eyes shone with unshed tears, and she looked at Ringo with the tiniest hope. “He wasn’t?”

  He shook his head. “We read the note. It was from 1889. Tom left it for Saira then so she could go back in time to find him.”

  Her gaze turned to me. “But how …?” She faltered, and I honestly didn’t have an answer.

  “I don’t know. The only thing that makes sense is that when something changes in the past, it instantly affects everything in the present. We had something like that happen with memories of history. After we had changed a thing, all of a sudden the memories of the correct history were in our heads.” I was talking about the memories of Joan of Arc.

  “But did the old memories get replaced, or were the new ones just added?” Rachel asked. It was an astute question.

  “New ones were added, but only for those few of us who were part of the change. As far as we know, everyone else’s memories were just replaced.”

  “It’s a big responsibility, no? To be the keeper of the memories?” Rachel asked. I was surprised at how serious the conversation had gotten.

  “I hadn’t really thought about it before. You’re the same though, a keeper of memories.” I meant because she was a Jewish survivor of a horrific World War II massacre, but I couldn’t say that out loud. She understood, and her voice was solemn.

  “I will keep the memories of my village with me until the day I die.” She looked at both of us, but her eyes seemed to linger on Ringo’s. “I’ve decided to go to Palestine. I’ve submitted my immigration paperwork and am just waiting to hear when I can leave.”

  Nothing obvious changed in Ringo’s expression, but the tension rippling under his skin might as well have been a neon sign to me. He exhaled quietly. “‘Ow will ye get there?”

  “I’m a mechanic. Most others are gone fighting the war. There isn’t a lot of money left in the city, but there are still vehicles that need to be fixed, and I can fix them. I have a little money saved from just the short time you’ve been gone – since Aviv took me in and let me sleep here. He’s coming with me.” She whispered the last bit, as if she was afraid of Ringo’s reaction. But he was finished reacting – I could see it in his eyes – and a moment later the tension left his body.

  He squeezed Rachel’s hand. “Is there anything ye need? Anything we can help ye with?”

  She smiled sadly at him as if she understood what she’d just lost. “I don’t suppose you have any influence with the Home Office to help us get our exit papers?”

  “Not currently, but we can ask around,” Ringo said.

  Rachel brought his hand up to her lips and kissed it. “Thank you for understanding. I feel that I’m making the right choice.”

  Aviv returned to the kitchen with another candle to replace the one that was nearly a stub, and Rachel again invited him to sit. This time he did, and gradually, as we talked, Ringo let go of his wariness.

  Aviv told stories of ancient Jerusalem, of the fabled Well of the Souls under the Temple Mount and the Dome of the Rock. He said his grandmother’s grandmother passed down legends of the Ark of the Covenant hidden there since the time of the Babylonian destruction of the First Temple in 586 BC, and he described a bit of gold leaf on a sliver of ancient wood his grandmother swore came from the wooden box that held the Ten Commandments.

  I settled into the hard kitchen chair and closed my eyes. Aviv’s voice felt like rich purple silk velvet that wrapped around my raw nerves, and I thought I’d turn into something vaguely liquid just listening to him read the phone book. Stories about tunnels and treasures under ancient Jerusalem were just a bonus, and if I hadn’t already been married, I’d have probably fallen in love with Aviv just for his voice.

  When I saw how Rachel looked at Aviv, I knew that she already had.

  Ringo and I left the Bevis Marks Synagogue that night with hugs and handshakes, but with no tears. Rachel held me close and whispered, “Take care of him.”

  “I will,” I whispered back.

  Aviv kissed my cheeks after he’d shaken Ringo’s hand. “A safe journey,” he said quietly.

  “When we figure out what’s next,” I answered with a small scoff. His gaze held mine, and when I looked into his eyes I could finally see the
Otherness. He knew I saw it, and he smiled.

  “Not all those who wander are lost.”

  I stared at him in shock. “That’s not published yet.” As far as I knew, J.R.R. Tolkien hadn’t even written the “All That is Gold Does Not Glitter” poem yet.

  “Perhaps not, but it has been spoken since the time of the angels. Trust the journey itself for the wisdom to make the destination a new beginning,” Aviv said in his glorious voice, and I thought I might have just heard an angel speak.

  Shiny Things

  We slept side by side on Ringo’s small bed, like siblings or pack-mates. I craved the comfort of a friend, and he let me nestle against his back for warmth. I thought he’d say no when I asked, but there was emptiness in his eyes that felt like a hole in the room, and when he finally nodded and wrapped himself in his own blanket to lie next to me, I figured maybe he needed the comfort too.

  The tea was cooling in our mugs the next morning when Ringo finally spoke. “I didn’t know I wanted a chance with ‘er until it was gone, ye know?”

  I met his eyes sadly. “I’m sorry.”

  His gaze drifted to one of the drawings Charlie had pinned to a wall. “It’s probably for the best, all things considered. I wouldn’t have made a different choice, so I take the consequences. It was just nice to have that door standin’ open for a bit.”

  I watched him quietly over the rim of my mug. In the year that I’d known Ringo, he’d gone from a thieving street urchin with a smart mouth and a fierce curiosity to this … young man who sat across from me. He wasn’t particularly tall, but he was strong and fast and ridiculously capable, and he was possibly the wisest person I knew. He was also my best friend, and it hurt me to see him gathering the pieces of himself and putting them together on his own.

  “Should we go get Charlie?” I asked softly.

  His mouth quirked in a half-smile. “We’ll let ‘er bask in luxury for a bit longer.”