by Julianne Lee
“Who are you?”
Okay, he could go along with this gag. Not like he had someplace to be today. He sighed, placed a hand over his chest, and said, “Jason Brosnahan, at your service. We met about a month ago when you offered to buy my house. We went out once on a date, I think because you thought it would butter me up enough to sell to you, but you seem to still like me even though I won’t give up the house. And I swear you’ll find your dream house eventually. You sometimes stop for coffee on your morning run if neither of us is working.” He gestured with his cup to the frosted-over windows. “Like today. Though usually I’m dressed before you get here.” He sighed and peered at her. “Am I ringing any bells yet?”
Her gaze still wandered the room, and tears glistened in her wide eyes. “I don’t drink coffee. I prefer tea.” Jason started to put his cup down to get her some tea, but she continued, “However, since you’ve already made it, I’ll have the coffee.”
“Fine.” He sat back and gestured to one of the chairs, and she sat in it primly, facing him. “Take off your coat and stay a while, Shel.”
She looked, as if only now realizing she was even wearing a coat, then tried to pull the zipper apart.
“Here.” He stood to help her unzip the jacket, then took it to hang over the back of her chair. Beneath the jacket, she wore many layers of sweat pants, thermal underwear, T shirt, sweat shirt and zippered sweat jacket, and her feet were shod in nearly new running shoes encrusted with road salt and gravel.
Daintily, she picked up the mug and sniffed it before taking a sip. She said, “What happened to Amos? And the others?”
“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about, Shel. What others?”
“Lucas. Gar. Their father. Are you a cousin?”
“I have no idea. I suppose I could be. I’ve got cousins in Indian Lake, some in Gallatin, some over in Mount Juliet. I expect some of them might be named Lucas or Amos. Or Gar.” With names like that, those cousins would certainly be the ones who got beat up every day of their middle school years. “I’m afraid I don’t know them, though.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Huh?”
“Why are you in their house?”
“This is my house. And you know that. Been in the family for centuries.” He leaned forward and put his elbow on the table. “Shelby, why are you acting so weird?”
“Mr. Brosnahan, I assure you I’m neither weird nor acting. And this house isn’t nearly that old.” That wild-eyed look was coming back, and her lip began to tremble. She crossed her arms over her chest again. “I don’t know who Shelby is. I don’t know why you’re in the Brosnahans’ house. I don’t know why it’s winter outside when only a moment ago it was warm enough to be Indian Summer.”
“Warm?”
“And why am I in trousers? Where is my dress? It’s a costly dress, and my father will be furious at me for losing it.” She paused for a deep breath, then gathered herself to say with a calmness she obviously did not feel, “My name is Mary Elizabeth Campbell, my father is William Campbell, and I live on Walton’s Ferry Road near Hendersonville. I would thank you kindly if you could return me to my father’s house directly.” The tears came, and she reached out to grip her smiley mug with both hands.
“Walton Ferry Road is in Hendersonville.” Frustration rose. “Shelby, what’s wrong?”
“I’m not Shelby! Why do you keep calling me that? Who is this Shelby? Even in trousers, can’t you see I’m not a man?” Even more alarm came over her at the loss of temper, and she stood. “I must go.” The mug went to the table with a thump and a small splash of coffee.
“No, you can’t. It’s way too cold and slick out there. I know you didn’t drive.”
“I never drive. My father brought me. Where is my father?”
“Your father died, Shel. You told me he died a couple of years ago.”
“No!” She stepped away from him. “No, he was just here! Father!” She went into the foyer, shouting for her dead father.
Oh, God. He leapt to his feet and hitched up his pajamas again, and followed her as she searched the rooms. “Shelby, he’s not here. Jesus Christ on a stick!” That made her stop, turn, and fix a long glare on him, then she continued her search on up the stairs.
Jason followed her halfway up, then changed his mind and went back down to the foyer where there was a phone. He dialed 911 and asked for an ambulance. “I’ve got someone here...she seems to be having some sort of psychotic episode.” He listened to her calling out upstairs. “Or something. I need someone to take her to the hospital.” He was asked whether there had been an injury, and his heart sank. No, there was no injury. She needed a psychiatric consultation. After some dissembling, the operator told him an ambulance would take a while, due to the greater emergencies presented by the storm, but they would try to have one there sometime that day.
Lovely. He hung up and called to her. “Shelby!” There was no reply. An idea struck, and he tried it her way. “All right, then,” he sighed. “Mary Elizabeth! Mary, come down here!”
In a moment he heard her on the stairs. He called again. “Mary Elizabeth, come down and finish your coffee. Your father had to go...out. For a moment. He’ll be back. He asked me to look after you while he was gone.”
The look in her eye as she descended to the foyer told him she wasn’t buying any of it. Now it was a sort of Mexican Standoff, with neither believing the other, but both of them needing to pretend they did. “Very well, Jason. I’ll sit and drink coffee with you until Father returns.” She went with him to the dining room, where they resumed their seats.
For a while Jason drank coffee and wondered what he was going to do with Shelby. Or Mary Elizabeth, or whatever she wanted to be called today. By the time the coffee was finished, the fire in the hearth was collapsing and asking for a new log, and the electricity came back on.
Mary Elizabeth screamed again.
Chapter 6
September 1860
Shelby felt suspended in time, her face inches from Lucas’s. A tiny cartoon voice in the back of her mind chanted, “Drizzle, drazzle, drozzle, drome,” but there was no Mister Wizard at hand. The force that had brought her here declined to send her home and she didn’t awaken from this dream. Instead she waited, expecting the world to dissolve before her eyes at any moment. It was, after all, dead. Dead this past century and a half, and Lucas’s life a matter of a few cryptic lines in an obscure library book.
But it didn’t fade. Impossibly, Lucas was still looking at her. More alive and real than she’d ever seen him, he stared at her with a softness in his eyes that kindled heat in her belly. Inside the painfully tight corset, her pulse thudded against the stays. Breathing strained. Black spots floated before her eyes, and the next thing she knew she was reaching for him to steady herself.
It was real. All real. Lucas was flesh and bone beneath her hand as he held her up with his left arm. “Whoa, there!” His low voice filled with concern for her and awareness of her frailty. “How about let’s head to the house?”
Shelby nodded, and he walked with her toward the porch.
This was real. Though she pinched herself nearly black and blue at the base of her thumb, the scene did not change and Lucas remained solid and breathing beside her. Dizziness came again. How was she supposed to get home? There was work to do. Her job wouldn’t wait for her to be done playing dress-up with a ghost. Her friends would miss her. How on God’s earth did she get here? How in the world was she going to know how to act with these people? Her fingers scrabbled at the corset as if she could make it loosen. Her one desire right then was to tear all her clothes from her body in order to breathe. And wouldn’t that make a great impression? How could she live in this time even a day without being thought crazy?
Might she actually be crazy?
Lucas assisted her onto the porch, where the shade was somewhat refreshing, and helped her arrange herself with her hoop and petticoats on an unpainted wooden bench by the d
oor. Sitting helped the breathing, but not much. It was still an effort to sit straight enough to catch a breath. Dark spots drifted in her vision, and visual perspective deepened and shortened in odd ways. Mary Beth’s father came to ask after her, an edge of worry to his voice, and as she watched Lucas explain, an odd detachment overcame her as if this were a movie she was watching. A middle-aged woman came with a glass of water, and Shelby sipped it with her eyes closed.
“Perhaps it’s time we moseyed on home,” said Mary Beth’s father.
Home. That sounded wonderful, and Shelby could only nod. Then she caught the alarm in Lucas’s eyes, and said, “I’m fine. Just needed to catch my breath. It was quite taken away.”
That brought a smile, and even a bit of a blush. He glanced at Mary Beth’s father, but the old man made no sign he knew what they’d been up to. Shelby had to stifle a grin herself, at a grown man blushing over a kiss.
Amos reached for Lucas’s arm to view the damage. The younger Brosnahan allowed the handling, but didn’t let on the wound hurt any. His attention was on Shelby.
Mary Beth’s father turned to Amos and said with hail fellow good cheer, “Well, my friend, I expect we’ll conclude our business tomorrow.”
“I expect so.”
Lucas, without taking his eyes off Shelby said, “Sure y’all wouldn’t care to stay for supper?” Then he looked to Mary Beth’s father for a reply.
Amos gently turned Lucas’s arm, where the drying blood had coated his entire hand. The bleeding had stopped. Under his breath he muttered, “What the devil tangled with you, little brother?”
Lucas ignored Amos and continued to Mr. Campbell, an unmistakable note of hope in his voice. “Gar slaughtered a hog this morning. Ruth has got a roast on the fire.”
Fresh pork, roasted over a wood fire. Now Shelby was hoping they’d stay, and she looked to the man who thought he was her father.
There was a fair hesitation in Mr. Campbell before he said, “Thank you, no. Much as I would enjoy Ruth’s good cooking, Mary Beth and I have got to get back.”
As much as was possible inside this torturous corset, Shelby slumped with disappointment. Not only at missing the food, but there was a reluctance to leave this house she thought of as hers. Though obviously Mary Beth didn’t live here, up until about an hour ago Shelby had, and God knew where this man was going to take her when they left. She looked at Lucas, and realized she also didn’t wish to leave the only familiar face left to her now. She wanted to stick around where Lucas was. “Let’s stay.”
But the old man ordered her to rise and follow him, in an abrupt, overbearing tone that made her bristle. A surge of anger made her blurt, “I’m not Mary Beth.” It was a bad habit, but sometimes she couldn’t help saying things when she felt disrespectful. The laughter from everyone present angered her even more, and her face warmed. She said, “My name is Shelby Douglas, and I’m from the future. I don’t really belong here. You’re not my father, and you have no authority over me.”
The laughter died, leaving Lucas as the last chuckler. Shelby raised her chin at Mary Beth’s father, and a glint of anger came into his eyes. “That’s enough of that, young lady.”
In for a pound, Shelby replied, “It’s true, Mr. Campbell. I’m Shelby Douglas, born in the late twentieth century. Probably any minute I’ll be returned to my own time, and then you can order Mary Beth around like a servant.
Everyone was silent now. She wasn’t joking, and had made that clear to them. Campbell cleared his throat and said, “Mary Elizabeth Campbell, you will desist this nonsense immediately. If you wish to have us all believe you have lost your mind, you should remember your cousin Maisie who resides in her husband’s attic these past twenty years. There she screams and pounds the door for release, day and night. Do you want that fate?”
Shelby went silent as she realized she was playing by rules she barely knew. Campbell’s tone was serious. It was clear he would lock her up if he thought she was crazy. Or even if he thought she was merely disobedient.
The look on Lucas’s face was a shot to the heart. A moment ago she’d felt drawn to him, but now the shock on his face and wariness in his eyes let her know he thought her outburst was a very bad sign in someone he might marry. Somehow that mattered to Shelby. She liked him and desired his respect.
Quickly she grinned, tossed her head, and said as lightly as she could, “Ha! Gotcha! I was just fooling! Boy, you all should have seen your faces!”
The Brosnahans all laughed, a little more loudly than they might have, for the relief that it had been a joke. The look of doubt in Lucas’s eyes became once again the humor she’d seen earlier. It felt good to have his regard. He thought she was Mary Beth, and she hadn’t the heart to disappoint him.
As badly as everyone had reacted, Shelby realized it would be folly to attempt to convince anyone in this time that she was from the future. Besides the risk of being locked up as a madwoman, it occurred to her they might think she was a witch. Though nobody burned witches anymore, neither did they care to have them around. She would need to tread lightly on the subject of her true origins, and would even need to be careful about making any predictions of historical events. Though she expected to be returned home any minute, it wouldn’t be right to ruin Mary Beth’s reputation.
With his good arm Lucas offered a hand up from the bench, and she was appalled to find she needed it. This dress was going to choke her to death for certain if she didn’t soon find a place where she could peel it off and loosen this damned corset. Mary Beth was thin and flat as a board. In an attempt at creating curves she’d cinched the corset so tight at the waist Shelby could barely move. And Shelby wasn’t one for restraining garments in any case.
With a nod of adieu to each of the Brosnahan brothers, she then followed Mary Beth’s father to a small buggy that awaited near the house.
Campbell slowed and said, “Are you all right, Mary Beth?”
“Sure. I’m fine.” Other than suffocating.
“You’re walking oddly. I thought you might have hurt your foot or your leg.”
Shelby straightened some more and struggled to walk more gracefully.
Mr. Campbell helped her up into the shady interior of the black two-seater, then climbed in himself. Her knuckles went white as she steadied herself against the swaying while the old man settled in. He was taking her away, and she hadn’t the slightest clue where. There was no way of knowing what awaited her at the end of this ride. Mary Beth’s father slapped the reins against the horse’s rump, and they started off at a jerky walk. Shelby took the fall leaf bouquet from behind her ear and held it in her lap with the diary.
The pace was insufferably slow, and Shelby felt every bump in the dirt track. There was a long silence as they went, and it seemed to take forever to reach the edge of the trees where the road ruts disappeared around a bend into a stand of woods. Just as they did, Shelby turned to the buggy’s rear window for one more glance at the house which had been her home. Her jaw dropped. She was quite stunned to find Lucas still standing at the end of the porch, watching her go, his right arm held at a tender angle and his stance hipshot, head tilted in contemplation. As she went, he raised a hand in farewell, and she did likewise, then held the bouquet to her nose as if sniffing it. Then she was in the trees and he was gone.
Facing forward, she heaved as much of a sigh as she could muster. Panic tried to come, but she kept it off with some breaths that weren’t very deep but they were the best she could do.
Mary Beth’s father was watching her. “It would appear you’ve changed your mind about young Lucas.”
Young Lucas? How young was he? What year was this? The railroad tracks had been built, so it couldn’t be any earlier than 1858. That would make Lucas between twenty-three and twenty-eight years old. She guessed closer to twenty-eight by his face. But to this old guy here, she supposed anyone under thirty would seem a child.
She opened her mouth to reply to the query, but realized she had no frame of
reference. “Changed my mind?” What did this man believe had been Mary Beth’s mind earlier this day?
“Coyness is unnecessary, child.” He pointed with his chin to the bouquet on her lap. “If you’ve decided you care for him after all, I want to know. I’d be a happy father to know my daughter will be contented as well as maintained in her marriage.”
Stunned once more, Shelby blurted, “Am I engaged to Lucas?”
Mary Beth’s father cleared his throat and replied, “He hasn’t come to me yet, no. He hasn’t asked you, has he?”
Shelby guessed. “No.” The kiss she’d received today was not from a man who thought she was promised to him.
Father gave a short nod, as if her reply confirmed everything was on the right track. “I expect he shall. Far better, were you to encourage him for your own sake and not just mine. Not to mention it would happen much sooner than if Lucas Robert senses reluctance.”
Reluctance? How much did this man know of how Mary Beth felt? This could be a long game of twenty questions. With nothing to lose but her sanity, which seemed to be slipping from her grasp in any case, she swallowed some tears of frustration and said, “But you would rather I married Lucas for your sake than not at all.”
At least the man had the good grace to flush red at her bluntness and his own guilt. A long sigh came from him and he shifted in his seat. “You mustn’t put it so harshly.”
“But that’s what you intend.”
“You’re no longer such a young lady, Mary.” Which, she noticed, didn’t seem to prevent him from calling her “child,” but Shelby let that slide as he continued. “Your sister is...” His mouth opened and closed like a fish as he groped for the correct words. “Susannah is a spirited girl, you understand.”
“And this involves me how?” The tightness of her corset and her rising irritation brought her to almost panting. Oh, that a fairy godmother would come to whap her with a magic wand and send her home!