Reaching Through Time
Page 1
YOU’LL WANT TO READ THESE INSPIRING TITLES BY
Lurlene McDaniel
ANGELS IN PINK
Kathleen’s Story
Raina’s Story
Holly’s Story
ONE LAST WISH NOVELS
Mourning Song
A Time to Die
Mother, Help Me Live
Someone Dies, Someone Lives
Sixteen and Dying
Let Him Live
The Legacy: Making Wishes
Come True
Please Don’t Die
She Died Too Young
All the Days of Her Life
A Season for Goodbye
Reach for Tomorrow
OTHER OMNIBUS EDITIONS
Keep Me in Your Heart: Three Novels
True Love: Three Novels
The End of Forever
Always and Forever
The Angels Trilogy
As Long As We Both Shall Live
Journey of Hope
One Last Wish: Three Novels
OTHER FICTION
Heart to Heart
Breathless
Hit and Run
Prey
Briana’s Gift
Letting Go of Lisa
The Time Capsule
Garden of Angels
A Rose for Melinda
Telling Christina Goodbye
How Do I Love Thee: Three Stories
To Live Again
Angel of Mercy
Angel of Hope
Starry, Starry Night: Three
Holiday Stories
The Girl Death Left Behind
Angels Watching Over Me
Lifted Up by Angels
For Better, for Worse, Forever
Until Angels Close My Eyes
Till Death Do Us Part
I’ll Be Seeing You
Saving Jessica
Don’t Die, My Love
Too Young to Die
Goodbye Doesn’t Mean Forever
Somewhere Between Life and Death
Time to Let Go
Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep
When Happily Ever After Ends
Baby Alicia Is Dying
From every ending comes a new beginning.…
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2011 by Lurlene McDaniel
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., NewYork.
Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
Visit us on the Web! www.randomhouse.com/teens
Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools,
visit us at www.randomhouse.com/teachers
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
McDaniel, Lurlene.
Reaching through time: three novellas/Lurlene McDaniel.—1st ed.
v. cm.
Summary: Three tales of teenagers experiencing the inexplicable.
Contents: What’s happened to me?—When the clock chimes—The mysteries of chance.
eISBN: 978-0-375-89949-2
1. Children’s stories, American. [1. Supernatural—Fiction. 2. Short stories.] I. Title.
PZ7.M4784172Re 2011 [Fic]—dc22 2010020745
Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.
v3.1
CONTENTS
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
What’s Happened to Me?
When the Clock Chimes
The Mysteries of Chance
About the Author
To Josiah, Jedi, Abbie, Olivia,
Kiley, Trevor, Conner and
Gavin—my beloved ones!
Beautiful dreamer, wake unto me,
Starlight and dewdrops are waiting for thee;
Sounds of the rude world, heard in the day,
Lull’d by the moonlight have all pass’d away!
—STEPHEN FOSTER (1826–1864)
1
She awoke in the dark, too terrified to move. Her eyes were wide open, but she saw nothing but blackness. Pressure squeezed her chest and she couldn’t breathe. She grew light-headed, and just when she thought she would suffocate, she heaved a great gasping breath, like a drowning person breaking the surface of water. Air poured into her lungs and she gagged with the need for it.
At once the darkness was broken by the flare of a single light. “Don’t be afraid,” a man’s voice said in her ear. “I’m right here.”
She turned her head to see a glowing candle held aloft, and behind it, his face. Dark hair framed pale skin. He had angular cheekbones and a chiseled jaw, and his eyes were the color of rain. “Who—” she whispered, terror tracing the word.
“Don’t be frightened. You’re safe. I’m watching over you.”
He reached out and stroked her cheek. His touch was cool, soothing, and her brain grew sluggish. She wondered if she had a fever.
“But where—” she asked.
“Time for questions and answers tomorrow,” he interrupted. “For now, just sleep.”
Her eyelids grew heavy, and despite all her fears, she closed her eyes and obeyed him.
When next she awoke, gray gloom had replaced the dark. She blinked up at a high canopy stretching above the bed where she lay. Tall windows dominated the wall directly in front of the bed, and lead-colored daylight seeped between partially drawn thick velvet drapes. Her heart pounded. She remembered the lighted candle, though, and the voice and face from behind it. She cut her eyes to the bedside.
The young man had kept his promise. He was stretched out in a chair, asleep. In the murky light she saw that her first impression of him had been accurate—dark tendrils of black hair fell over his forehead, and his skin was indeed pale. His hands were draped over the chair’s arms, and his fingers were long and tapered, pale and smooth. The other thing she noticed was that he was quite elegant. He was lean, and dressed in leather breeches and a soft, loose white shirt open at his throat.
With one look at him she knew much more about him than she did about herself. Where was she? Who was she? Why had she no memory of herself? How could a person forget who she was? Her own name? Where memories should have been, she found only black holes.
“You’re awake.”
His voice startled her. She struggled to sit upright.
He moved quickly and gracefully to sit on the bedding beside her. “No, lie back. You’re weak. Let me bring you something to eat.”
She was weak. One more thing she didn’t understand. He eased her against the pillow. “I’ll be right back.”
She grasped at his arm. “Please. Tell me what’s happened to me.”
His eyes, the irises so pale, the pupils black and fathomless, settled on hers. “I’ll tell you everything I know as soon as you eat.”
He left through a tall wooden door, and the second it closed, she eased to a sitting position. The room spun. She took deep breaths until her vision cleared. She examined the room, saw elaborate tapestries hanging along the wall that butted into the wall of windows and velvet curtains, and another wall heavy with elaborately carved pieces of furniture. Nothing looked familiar, only foreign and foreboding. She closed her eyes, dug deep, searching for some memory, anything that she could hold on to, to tell her about herself and where she was.
She m
oved her arms and then her legs beneath the covers. Her body worked. Nothing hurt. But her memory was a blank slate. She lifted the covers and saw that she wore a thick white cotton nightgown. Beneath that, she was naked. Before she even had time to wonder about it, the door opened and her benefactor came in carrying a tray. “Here you go—tea and wheat toast with honey. Cream and sugar for your tea.”
She pulled the covers up to her chin, fisting the sheets and thick coverlet snugly to her body. “I don’t know if I drink tea,” she said.
“You’ll like it,” he said.
He set the tray across her lap and poured steaming brown liquid from a sparkling silver pot into a rose-patterned china cup so thin and finely made she could see through it. He settled himself on her bed to face her. “A little cream, and how about two sugars?”
She watched him drop two small white cubes into the cup with little silver tongs, then pour white cream from a silver pitcher that matched the teapot. He stirred the mixture with a silver spoon and lifted the cup and saucer toward her. “Drink up.”
Her hands trembled as she reached for the cup, not wanting to look at him, but unable to help it; her gaze was drawn to his like a magnet to steel. His deep-set eyes were now the color of smoke, the pupils as dark as before. Her heart beat uncontrollably. He smiled warmly and she raised the cup to her mouth. The liquid tasted warm and sweet and began to revive her.
“It’s good,” she said, prying her gaze away from his.
“Excellent.” He grinned, took the cup and picked up the toast and ladled thick golden honey over it.
She took it, ate it. “This is good too.”
He leaned back, braced a booted foot against the bedside chair. “Now, as promised, your questions.”
She had a million questions, but decided not to let him know she remembered nothing of who she was first thing out of her mouth. “H-how did I end up here?”
“I found you.”
“Found me?”
“On my father’s estate, up by the entrance gate, just inside. You were lying in a heap on the ground, unconscious.”
“But how did I get there?”
He shrugged broad but graceful shoulders. “That I don’t know. I was out riding. My horse drew up or he would have stepped on you.”
“When was this?”
“A few days ago.”
“Days!” She sat up straighter and the tray would have slid away if he hadn’t caught it.
“I brought you here,” he said, setting the tray on the nearby chair. “To this room. To this bed.”
She remembered the gown she was wearing. And what she wasn’t wearing under it. “Who dressed me?” She couldn’t bring herself to ask “Who undressed me?”
“I did,” he said.
Her face burned hot, and she wanted to hide under the thick covers. “Where are my clothes?”
“I burned them.”
Her embarrassment turned to shock, then to anger. “You burned them! They might have held a clue about me.”
“Your clothing was dirty and torn. I’ll find something for you to wear.”
“I don’t want your clothes. I want mine. I want to go—” She halted. Go where?
He rose from the bed, bowed and gestured toward the door. “You may leave at any time. You’re not a prisoner, just a lost girl I rescued from the cold and brought into my home.”
Her anger fizzled. “I—I don’t mean to be ungrateful. I know you’ve helped me. It’s just that—that …” She couldn’t finish.
He moved closer to the bed, lifted her chin. Once again, she found his touch cool, as if his hand had been in cold air. “I get that you’re frightened. But now that you are here, you’re my guest, and you’re safe.”
She stared up into his compelling eyes. “You don’t understand,” she whispered, struggling to find words she didn’t want to say.
“Tell me.”
He might think her insane, but she decided to risk it. “I—I don’t know who I am. I have no memory of anything that happened before I woke up in this bed last night. Nothing. Zero. I don’t even know my own name. Who can’t remember their own name?”
He lifted a bit of hair that had fallen across her face and smoothed it off her forehead, his eyes ever holding hers. “A person who’s struck her head and has temporary amnesia. You’ve lost your memory. I’m sure that with rest it will return. Until then, you’re welcome to stay here and recover. All right?”
Lost. Yes, she was lost in a place she didn’t know, with a stranger she found exciting and mysterious and oddly disturbing. “What now?” she asked.
“Get your strength back and let me be your friend.” He stepped away, and she was torn between wanting him to stay and wanting him to leave. He went to the door.
“Wait,” she called. “Who are you? I don’t know your name, and you’ve helped me.”
“My bad manners,” he said, bowing. “I am Heath de Charon. Your host.”
2
After Heath had shut her door, she swung her legs to the floor. She felt woozy, but once the feeling passed she began to explore her space. The room was large, with ceilings that soared upward, high enough to make the huge canopied bed seem perfectly sized for the space. The stone floor was covered in thick woven rugs, but still the air was chilly and so were her bare feet. She crossed to the windows and tugged on the rich purple drapery, sliding the panels aside to reveal wavy panes of glass and a view of thick gray mist, too thick to see through.
She made her way around the room, touching massive pieces of carved furniture, opening drawers, in which she found a couple of sweaters and not much else. She stopped at a tall piece of furniture with doors and metal handles. She pulled open the doors and discovered a few pairs of slacks and plain white tops along with a long gray dress. Were these the clothes Heath had meant she could wear? She looked down at the simple cotton nightgown, felt another rush of embarrassment. Nothing looked or felt familiar, and she grew irritated all over again. How could Heath have burned her clothes? She wanted to cover herself from head to toe, so she grabbed the long gray dress with its high neck and long sleeves, then rummaged through all the dresser drawers until she discovered a long slip, smooth and soft to her touch. She dressed, hoping both would fit. She shouldn’t have wondered—both pieces fit as though they’d been made for her tall lean body.
She found heavy woolen stockings and tugged them on, and beneath a stack of shawls she found a mirror lying facedown. She chewed her bottom lip, hesitant to turn it over, not sure she wanted to look at herself. What would the mirror tell her? Her hand trembled as she turned the mirror upward. What she saw was a girl equal in age to Heath de Charon, with wavy shoulder-length brown hair and blue eyes. What she didn’t see was someone she recognized.
“Are you feeling better?” Heath looked up from where he was seated at a gold-ornamented desk when she stepped into the room.
“The toast and tea helped,” she said. She’d left her room and crept down wide carpeted stairs lined with a banister of rich dark twisting wood. At the foot of the stairs, a marble floor spread in all directions to thresholds of tall doorways leading to several rooms. She’d discovered Heath behind this desk in one of the rooms.
He rose, smiled and walked to her. “Welcome to the library. I’m catching up on some estate bookkeeping business for my father.”
She saw grand shelves that reached to the room’s ceiling, every one filled with leather-bound books. Two tall windows allowed gray morning light to fill the room. “I don’t want to bother you.”
He took her hand and led her to a sofa of soft supple leather. “No trouble.” He guided her to sit and he sat beside her, turning in her direction. “I see you found the closet.”
Her face went hot as she thought about him undressing her, about his pale eyes seeing her breasts, her curves and intimate mounds. She averted her eyes. “Yes. Thank you.”
“I’m sorry you didn’t have much of a selection.”
“I liked the dress best,”
she said. “Without my other clothes, I had no idea what to put on.”
“You look good in anything. Or in nothing,” he added.
She felt her face burning.
“I’m embarrassing you. Forgive me.” He stood and walked over to his desk. “Please, look around. This won’t take much longer.”
Anxious to have something to do, she began to make her way around the library, reaching to run her hand along the spines of the many books on one shelf. “You’ve got a large collection.”
“A family obsession.”
“Some look really old.”
“Most are. It’s my job to see they’re preserved. Original printings of rare books are also pretty valuable, but that’s not why I do it.”
She stopped in front of one of the long casement windows, stared out at the thick mist broken only by the top of a hedge that hugged the lowest pane of glass. She wrapped her arms around herself, shivered and fought an urge to cry.
He was next to her in seconds, cupping her chin and raising her face to his. “Don’t be afraid. You’re safe here.”
Tears welled in her eyes and his face blurred. “Why can’t I remember anything about myself? I look around and every object has a name. I know what each thing in the room is called. Everything except me. I found a mirror in my room, but I didn’t know the face that looked back at me.”
“Your memory will return,” he assured her.
“What if it doesn’t? Are you a doctor?”
“No, but I read all I could find about amnesia.”
“Did a doctor—?” She couldn’t finish her question because he had laid a finger against her lips.
“Shhh. You’re getting worked up and it won’t help you remember. The best treatment is to adopt a daily routine and let your memory catch up with you. According to what I’ve read, when you least expect it, a fragment will return. That will lead you to additional fragments until all your memories come back.”
The coolness of his long fingers, the smoothness of his words and the beguiling depths of his eyes calmed her. She decided she must trust him because she had no other choice. “All right,” she said softly.