She watched, awestruck, as the bright red ball seemed to dip toward her in salute, then suddenly caught a breeze and rose higher and higher until it didn't seem big at all anymore.
"Oh, Lucy," she whispered, her temper and the frigid weather forgotten. "Did you ever see anything so beautiful?" It had hovered over the stand of pines just to the left of the clearing, as if beckoning her to jump in the basket and go off on a grand adventure. And she would have, too, if it hadn't floated away before she could run over and grab hold.
Short legs pumping fast beneath her skirt, she ran toward the trees. If the big red ball returned, she and Lucy would be there waiting and they wouldn't think twice before leaping aboard.
Papa would feel so bad that he'd forget all about that school in Boston and let her stay with him forever. And Mama would hear about her wondrous adventure and she would come back home to stay and the big white house would be filled with laughter the way it used to be.
#
It wasn't like Dakota had never been in a ridiculous situation before.
Just two months ago she'd accepted a blind date with the son of her mother's favorite tarot card reader from south Jersey, a guy named Brick who sold vinyl siding for a living and had all the creative imagination of his namesake. They'd spent a terrific hour and a half discussing the relative merits of faux cedar shakes before Dakota developed a sudden headache and had to cut the evening short.
"You didn't give him a chance," her mother had said in an exasperated tone of voice. "Elly read his palm a week ago Thursday and she swears she saw your name scrawled across his life line."
Which didn't surprise Dakota. Her name was scrawled across the life line of every loser on the Eastern seaboard. As bad as that blind date had been, nothing--not even the time she'd trailed toilet paper from the ladies room at the swanky Palmer Inn--was worse than this.
You didn't need psychic powers to know nothing good ever happened when you threw fate a curve ball.
Anyone with a brain knew her destiny was clearly tied up with Andrew and Shannon's. She'd been fading away like a ghost in an old B movie and she had no doubt she would have vanished into thin air in another moment if she hadn't managed to scramble aboard with Andrew's help. Climbing into that gondola had been the equivalent of psychic CPR.
She glanced at her hands. She couldn't see through them. That had to be a good sign. Wherever she was, she was solidly connected. But where was she? Where were Andrew and Shannon? And, even more important, when were they?
Her stomach lurched as she remembered the sickening sound the basket made as it scraped the tops of the trees and the look of fear in Shannon's eyes.
"They're fine," she mumbled. Their destiny had never been in doubt. She was the one who'd been heading home with a bag of jelly donuts, only to find herself propelled headlong through time.
You panicked, kiddo. The second that balloon tilted, you were ready to bail out.
"Ridiculous!" She'd heard that little girl as clearly as she heard her own voice and something, some suppressed maternal instinct, had taken over and forced her to leap from the basket.
You leaped just before it went down, Wylie. You'd have been something on the Titanic.
So she was an idiot. Big deal. A few crossed neurons and she'd conjured up a lost little girl that only Dakota Wylie, Super Librarian, could rescue.
Now, there she was, a good twenty feet off the ground, clinging to the branch of a maple tree that didn't look strong enough to support a blue jay, much less a plump American woman who believed in physical exertion only at gunpoint.
Of course there was always the remote possibility that some kind soul with a reinforced aluminum ladder would come strolling through the woods in search of a damsel in distress.
Why on earth had she eaten that last raspberry jelly donut anyway? Those few ounces of fat and sugar might be enough to send her crashing to the ground. She shifted her weight over to what she prayed was a sturdier limb.
The branch creaked loudly in protest but it held and she breathed a huge sigh of relief. Somebody should invent a way to determine these things without offering yourself up as a human sacrifice.
As it was, if the fall didn't kill her, the weather might. The dark, jagged cloud cover that had rocked the gondola was gone now, replaced by heavy ivory-colored skies that promised snow. Lots of it. Goosebumps marched up and down her arms and her teeth chattered from the cold. Her T-shirt and jeans weren't going to cut it for very long.
Now you've done it, Wylie. Leave it to you to screw with the forces of destiny.
She clung to the branch as a furious blast of wind shook the maple. Maybe she wouldn't have to worry about climbing down from the tree. Another icy gust like that and she'd drop to the ground like an overripe peach. She longed for a down-filled jacket and fur-lined boots. Hard to believe last night she'd been praying for central air-conditioning and something cool to drink.
So now what, hotshot? How are you going to get out of this one?
What if she'd jumped out during the Seventies and was being condemned to a lifetime of disco music and platform shoes? She'd need a shoehorn to get her hips into one of those slinky polyester dance dresses, the kind that required lots of attitude and breasts that saluted the sun.
Well, there was no hope for it. She couldn't hang there like a bat for the rest of her natural life. Those snow clouds lowering overhead meant business and if she was going to find shelter before nightfall, she'd better get to it.
In the next tree a woodpecker tapped relentlessly against the hard wood. The machine gun rat-a-tat-tat provided a counterpoint to the din of two jays squabbling overhead. Another, sweeter sound floated up toward her.
"Oh, Lucy...it was so beautiful!" A child's voice, high and clear.
"Hello!" Dakota called out. "Is somebody there?"
She waited, listening to the quality of the silence. Was she crazy or was it different than it had been a few moments ago?
"I heard you," she continued, trying to sound as friendly as the circumstances would allow. "Don't be shy. I need your help." And I need it now.
She waited, scarcely breathing, as the branch she clung to creaked ominously. Finally she heard the crunch of frozen leaves underfoot as a little girl of no more than five or six stepped into the clearing.
Her brown hair was plaited into two uneven braids that drooped over narrow shoulders. She wore a heavy woolen cloak that brushed her ankles and leather slippers that had seen better days. The cloak was unfastened and Dakota spied a plain cotton dress, faded from many washings. There was nothing of the 20th century about the child.
Was this the little girl she'd heard just before she leaped from the gondola? She waited for the stirring of her blood, the rush of excitement that always accompanied a leap into another person's mind but there was none.
The girl's narrow face was pale, her nose unremarkable; the last time Dakota had seen eyes that wide and round was at a revival of Annie. The child was a little slip of a thing with an air of sadness about her that Dakota could feel in her very bones without benefit of psychic help.
A coincidence, she thought, looking away. The woods were probably lousy with kids. Just because the Little Match Girl down there had popped up right on cue didn't mean she had anything to do with Dakota.
This couldn't be her destiny. Kids weren't part of her karma. She'd known that since she was fourteen years old, and she'd be willing to bet that not even the fact that she'd barreled through time like a human cannonball could change that fact.
Chapter Two
"I'm up here," an unseen monster called out to Abigail. "In the maple tree."
The monster could see her! It made Abigail feel shivery inside, the way she did after Cook told her an Irish ghost story. Even though she knew she shouldn't, she turned toward the voice.
"The maple tree, little girl, not the chestnut."
"But the leaves are not--" Abigail pressed her lips together to stop the flow of words. She didn't want the mons
ter to know she couldn't tell a maple from a chestnut without their brightly colored leaves.
"Look right, and then look up! Believe me when I say you can't miss me."
Don't listen to the monster, Abby. You'll be gobbled up like one of Cook's apple pies.
Terrible things happened when you listened to monsters but she didn't know how to say no. Slowly, carefully, she peered up as ordered. "I still cannot see you."
"Don't you watch Sesame Street, kid? I said, look right." The monster didn't sound quite so friendly this time.
Abigail popped her thumb into her mouth, the way she always did when she was afraid of something.
"That's it!" the monster bellowed. "The hand you just used...that's your right. Turn that way."
Cautiously Abigail did. Her eyeballs all but popped from their sockets at the sight of the creature with the black curls and white shoes. The monster wasn't so terribly large but it seemed to Abigail she'd never seen feet so big in her entire life. Why, the soles of the monster's shoes were thicker than the feather mattress on her bed!
"So you finally found me."
"Ohh," Abigail said as her breath locked deep inside her chest. The monster sounded like a girl but no one, not even a boy, would have such short and peculiar hair. "Oh my!"
"Look," said the monster, just as pleasant as can be, "this isn't the most comfortable spot in town. Bring me a ladder and then we'll talk."
Abigail took a step backward. "No."
"Help me get down from this tree and I'll give you something special."
"You're a monster," Abigail said. "I want you to go away."
"Hey, I may not be a Vogue model but isn't that monster business getting kind of personal?"
Abigail clutched Lucy tighter. She didn't understand everything the monster said but she had to pretend she did. You had to be clever to best them. "If you're not a monster, then what are you?"
#
Somewhere between "Hello, little girl," and "Bring me a ladder," Dakota had lost total control of the situation. The sky was growing darker, the wind was howling and, unless she missed her guess, those were snowflakes drifting past her nose.
"Listen, kid, think of me as your fairy godmother. Now will you please find somebody to help me down from this tree?" Historically fairy godmothers got good press and from the look of interest in the kid's eyes she'd said the right thing.
"Are you a fairy godmother like in Cook's stories?"
"Absolutely."
Now all she had to do was provide some physical evidence. Whispering a silent prayer to the goddess of women-stuck-in-maple-trees, Dakota unloosed her death grip and waved her left hand in the air.
Her six silver rings reflected the fading light and she milked the effect for all it was worth, moving her hand in a wide arc like a crazed traffic cop. Her crystal bracelets proved even better. The kid seemed downright spellbound as the stones refracted the light into arrows of pure color.
Thank God good taste had never marred her talent for overstatement.
"Are they magic?" The child's tone was downright reverential.
In for a penny, in for a pound. "Yes, and if you help me get down from this tree, I'll prove it to you." How hard could it be to dazzle a little girl with an eye for gaudy costume jewelry?
"If they're magic, why can't they get you down from the tree?"
"They're a different kind of magic," she hedged. A logical kid. Just her luck. "They don't do tree magic."
"You're not a real fairy godmother."
Dakota tried to look demure. "Why do you say that?"
"Fairy godmothers are pretty."
"Like you're another Shirley Temple?" she muttered under her breath. She forced herself to bestow her best smile on the little darling. "Maybe I'm a different kind of fairy godmother."
"No." The child shook her head. "There is only one kind."
"Listen, kid, I'm trying real hard, but you're making it awfully tough to like you."
"I do not like you either." The little girl's trembling chin punctuated the words.
Dakota cautiously shifted her weight over to a lower branch and pretended the creaking noise wasn't a portent of disaster. "You're not going to cry, are you?"
On cue the kid's eyes flooded with tears.
Dakota wrapped her legs around the trunk of the tree and eased herself down a good eighteen inches to another miserably scrawny branch. "There's nothing to cry about." At least nobody called you a monster.
The kid's mouth opened wide and she let loose with a wail loud enough to be heard in the next county.
"Jeez." Dakota grabbed for the next branch down and breathed a sigh of relief when it didn't crack beneath her weight. Maybe if you'd paid more attention to aerobic conditioning and less to aerobic eating... "Crying never solved anything. Why don't you tell me what's wrong?"
The child clutched her pathetic excuse for a doll and mumbled something.
Dakota leaned forward. "What was that?"
"Papa doesn't..." The rest of the sentence was whispered into the doll's head and punctuated by noisy sobs.
Stay out of it, Dakota. Whatever it is, keep your nose out of it. Kids weren't her strong suit. Most people found their honesty charming but it scared the hell out of Dakota.
The branch creaked loudly. "What about your papa...?" Does he have a nice ladder I could borrow?
The plain little girl fixed her with an unnervingly adult gaze. "Papa doesn't like me because I'm not pretty."
That was quite a non sequitur. It took Dakota a moment to get her bearings. "I'm sure you're wrong."
"Mrs. O'Gorman says it's so. And so does Rosie and William and Cook--"
"What does your father say about this?"
"He says I'm incor--"
"Incorrigible?"
The kid nodded. "And that I must leave tomorrow for the Girls School of the Sacred Heart in Boston."
Dakota sighed. It was straight from a segment on Oprah. "And you were running away?"
"I won't go away to Boston. Mama ran away and that's when Papa stopped loving me."
Dakota's heart lurched. I don't want to hear this. She had her own thwarted destiny to worry about. She didn't need the child's problems too. Kids got annoyed with their parents every day of the week then forgot their annoyance by bedtime. "Your mother ran away?"
"To Philadelphia."
Dakota took a deep breath. Now they were getting somewhere. "And where do you live?"
The child pointed beyond the clearing to the west. "The big white house."
"And where is the big white house?"
"It's--" The child froze and tilted her head.
"What's the matter?" Fear rippled up Dakota's spine. She'd heard the noise too. "That's only the wind in the trees." She winced as the branch trembled. "Hey, wait a minute! Where are you going? Don't--"
Too late. The little girl vanished back into the woods as the branch Dakota was clutching groaned, cracked in two, and sent her crashing the rest of the way to the ground.
#
"I am sorry, Mr. Devane, but I fear we have not seen Abigail in weeks. Perhaps you did not know we have sent our dear Jonathan to his grandmother's in--"
"I regret the inconvenience, madam. I bid you good day." He inclined his head in the stiff and formal manner for which he was known, then turned sharply on his heel and headed for the door. The sun was dropping low in the sky and he intended to find the child before nightfall.
"Mr. Devane!" She stepped forward and placed a hand on his arm. "Have you spoken with Mistress Williams? Abigail oft spends time with Margaret's youngest...now what is her name? Lilly? Daisy? Rose! That is it. You must speak to Mistress Williams. I am sure that she--"
He neither slowed his pace nor met her eyes. "Thank you, madam."
With that he bounded down the porch stairs, mounted his chestnut stallion and was gone before the addlebrained woman could draw another breath.
It struck him how little he knew about the child's daily life, with whom she s
pent her time. He had assumed she passed her days alone, amusing herself either in the house or frolicking on the wide expanse of yard that was to have been Susannah's English garden. That she had companions was a revelation to him.
He was familiar with the Williams house, a ramshackle bedevilment of wood and brick, situated on the other side of town near the encampment. That the child had managed to find it amazed him. She would need to traverse not only considerable open fields, but a densely wooded area that many a learned man found challenging.
And there was the matter of twelve thousand troops, scattered from Morristown to Jockey Hollow to Franklin Ridge. They had felled trees, commandeered property, and generally brought bedlam to the area. The men were ill-fed, ill-clothed, and ill-tempered and he feared for the child's safety should she cross their path.
Still, she was a bright child with a talent for geography, unusual in one so young. He enjoyed a similar understanding of place, knowledge of terrain that had stood him in good stead during his brief alliance with the Continental Army. He wondered what other traits they shared then laughed bitterly as he remembered that a shared bloodline was most likely not among them.
#
Dakota lay face-down in a pile of leaves that smelled like wet squirrel. Not that she'd smelled many wet squirrels in her day but, like skunk, it was one of those things a woman never forgot. Her knee throbbed where she'd hit the ground and she was reasonably sure her ankle was either broken or badly sprained.
Lifting her head, she looked up at the darkening sky. Fat white snowflakes landed on her cheeks and lashes and, if possible, it was even colder than it had been a few minutes ago. If she hadn't been so foolhardy, she'd be with Shannon and Andrew right now, facing their combined destiny like three time-traveling musketeers. She refused to believe her own destiny was to be found nose-deep in dead leaves.
Her psychic antennae were still all out of whack. Somehow she'd picked up on that little girl's temper tantrum and twisted it around until it became a plea for help. Pretty easy to see which one of them needed help. At least the kid knew what century she was living in.
Somewhere in Time (The Crosse Harbor Time Travel Trilogy) Page 25