Third Time is a Charm

by Cate Martin

  I looked at it closely, as a whole and then following the paths of the individual threads. They formed walls with a bit more life to them than other buildings had. I could see the brighter thready knots where magical objects stood, largely in Miss Zenobia's office but some in the library and others scattered about.

  Exactly the same as I was used to seeing. So what was different?

  I looked more closely at the threads, how they interacted with the world around the house. No, that was still perfectly ordinary.

  Then, all at once, I saw what was different. None of the threads were touching me.

  That was strange. I shouldn't be able to perceive something that wasn't interacting with me, not when I was in the real world. And yet I had, every time I came to 1927.

  Or had I? Was this another strange side effect from my magical power being one related to time? Was it only me that was not interacting with the house?

  No, I was sure that wasn't true. Well, maybe not sure. I'd have to have Brianna and Sophie come back to 1927 with me while I looked at them from inside the web world, but I was pretty sure. This was some other magic, some magic in the house itself that only worked on people that were not in the correct time.

  This must be how it was that we never ran into any of the other students, although it always seemed like they had just been there. We never heard their voices, so it wasn't like they were fleeing the room before we came in, and yet they always had left so suddenly that things remained behind. Sweaters on the backs of chairs, the sandwiches, and tea that were almost but not quite consumed.

  While that was a horrid thought, that every time I went into the room that I thought was unoccupied, it was actually filled with people that I couldn't quite perceive. And I suppose they couldn't quite perceive me either, but there was no denying the fact that when I sat down in a chair that still had someone's sweater across the back of it, I was probably sitting right down on top of someone, overlapping in the space over the chair's seat with that person. We would be existing in the exact same space but at not quite the same time.

  Well, I couldn't wait to tell Brianna about that. She would want to come back to test herself, just as I did, but I could easily imagine how excited she would be at the idea. She would want to do experiment after experiment.

  I turned my attention away from the house, back to the bridge that joined this time to my own. I examined it closely, but just like on the other end, nothing was unusual or out of place. I would occasionally see a thread running through it that I knew belonged to Juno, but never enough together to say that she was truly there. I called her name, a couple of times, but I wasn't exactly surprised when she didn't bother to answer.

  She was biding her time for something. I didn't think she was sulking, that wouldn't be like her.

  At some point, she was going to make yourself known again. And that would probably spell trouble for me. It was probably best that she kept to herself for now.

  At any rate, I was certain this wardrobe business had nothing to do with her or with the time bridge. As much as I would appreciate being able to talk to her about my power, there were a lot of downsides to talking to her as well. She with her silver tongue and her hidden agendas. No, I was better off handling this alone.

  Not that I was handling it so well. I was getting absolutely no clues. I had a name, but I wasn't even sure if it was a useful one. If the Lambeau family had been gone from the apartment for so long and taken all the other furniture with them, they might not even own the wardrobe at all. Someone else might've stuck it there, for any sort of reason, knowing that the family would never come back to see it there.

  That apartment room, it felt so familiar. After having been in it just one time, I had been drawn back to it pretty easily. It had sort of called to me like I'd slid downhill towards it with very little effort.

  Would the wardrobe be just as familiar? If I just brushed past it mentally while expanding my awareness, would it draw my focus to it?

  Well, it was worth a try.

  I checked my body, saw that it was still breathing as evenly and regularly as before. A thought drifted through my mind, just wondering if my body was getting truly cold from sitting on the concrete for so long. But this would only take a minute.

  I expanded my awareness, going past the charm school with its strange, not-quite-there behavior, sweeping past Coco's house with its mundane details, then moving to the other houses on the other sides as well as front and back, an ever-expanding circle that widened around me, brushing through millions and millions of tiny threads, all interacting with each other. None of them had quite the familiar feel of the wardrobe that I was looking for.

  It felt so easy when I was doing it, just expanding out, wider and wider, but then all at once, it seemed like it was just too many threads. I was examining each of them individually, but they were acting on me collectively. There was no sign of the wardrobe, and now my consciousness had expanded so far out with all of those threads pulling at me that I wasn't sure I could get back down to my body again.

  I force myself not to panic, to do something like take a deep breath, even though in this alternate reality I didn't actually breathe. I concentrated on the throbbing of the threads I held in my hand, the breathing of the body I had left behind.

  That helped, that was my focus. I came back into my own body within two breaths, and I was indeed deeply cold to the bone. But when I tried to get up my legs were like rubber, and I fell to the snow.

  That was strange. I tried to get up again, but my legs still didn't quite want to take my weight. On the third try, leveraging myself off the edge of the patio, I managed to get onto my feet.

  Once, back in the early days of my weight training, I had overdone it just a little bit on leg day. That had felt something like this.

  Only this? Was all over my body, not just my leg muscles.

  I was shaking, worse than I had after the magic I had done that morning. Now I knew just shifting my awareness around had been draining me dry, but a little too late. These things came at a price. It was gonna take more than three fried egg sandwiches to bring myself back up to normal. Five or six might not even be enough to do it.

  Luckily, I had brought the amulet with me. I held it now, closing my eyes, more out of weariness than any desire to shift my consciousness around.

  When I opened them, I was in the backyard in my own time. The wind was whipping around me, pulling at my hair, but the ground was that ugly brown color that comes in late November when one really wishes it would just snow already.

  And standing in front of me, deep concern in his eyes, was Nick.

  Chapter 10

  For whatever reason, seeing him standing there staring at me made me shake even harder, and I was already shaking pretty intensely. I hugged my arms close around myself, hoping he would write it off as just me being cold.

  But the look on his face wasn't a gentle worry I might be uncomfortable. It was something more intense than that.

  Oh my goodness, had he just watched me appear out of nowhere? There's a huge difference between someone telling you they are a witch, and believing what they told you, and actually seeing them do something incredibly magical right in front of your eyes.

  But it wasn't shock and surprise on his face either. He looked really freaked out.

  "What is it?" I asked.

  Nick didn't answer, just reached into his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief.

  A handkerchief. An actual handkerchief. I would expect his grandfather to have one of those in his pocket at any moment, but not someone my age.

  Then he touched the handkerchief to my face just under my nose, a very gentle touch, and only when he had pulled the handkerchief away to refold it and bring it back to my face did I notice it was covered with blood.

  Oh," I said, reaching up to touch my nose, but he gently brushed my hand away to dab at my face again. "I had no idea. It must be the dry air."

  He still didn't speak, but the look
he gave me was deeply skeptical.

  "I'm cold," I said, only partly because I was sure he could feel my whole body shaking. "Let's go inside."

  "Let's," he said. He helped me up the steps and through the door into the solarium. I stopped there to slide off the boots and take off my hat, gloves, and coat.

  Again when I looked up at Nick, there was a strange expression on his face. I looked down to see what he was looking at and realized that I was of course still dressed in the 1927 dress. It wasn't quite the sort of thing that a trendy hipster girl would wear. Too everyday functional, not pretty enough.

  And even if it were, he knew me well enough to know I was not a trendy hipster girl.

  "I need tea," I said. "I really am quite cold. Would you like some tea?"

  "Tea," he said with a little nod.

  I went into the kitchen, and he followed me at a slower pace, the bloody handkerchief still in his hand. I put the electric kettle on and busied myself with cups and teabags.

  "I like Earl Grey at this time of day," I said, avoiding his eyes. "But I still have English breakfast if you prefer. Or something herbal maybe?"

  I'll have what you're having," he said. He leaned on the counter that ran between us, his eyes still on my dress.

  "I texted you earlier," I said, pulling out teabags and dispersing them between mugs.

  "And called," he said.

  "Yes. I haven't been able to find any useful information about that wardrobe or the man inside of it. But I didn't have much to work with. I was hoping you knew more."

  I know some things," he said.

  "Great," I said.

  There was a long, awkward moment while we waited for the water to come to a boil. Then I filled both the teacups and carried them over the kitchen table. He handed me the handkerchief, and I pressed it to my face, seeing that my nose was bleeding once again. "Dry air," I said again.

  "There's more going on here than dry air," Nick said.

  "Of course there is," I said. I waited for him to ask another question. Was he just curious about my out of time period dress, or had he actually seen me stepping out of nowhere in the backyard? Did he have some theory as to why my nose was bleeding that wasn't because of dry air? Had he learned something about the body or the wardrobe that was making him so suspicious?

  "So what did you have to tell me?" I finally asked, when he offered no questions of his own.

  "Well, it's an antique," he said.

  "It looked like one," I said.

  "We have to get an appraiser to tell for sure, but one of the other officers at the police station thought it looked like a genuine Louis XV."

  "I don't know what that means," I said. "I'm guessing expensive?"

  "From France, during that time when the palace at Versailles was the big thing. So yeah, old but in good shape. Worth a lot of money. That, or it's just a pretty good knockoff. It's hard to say. But Nelson managed to track down the family. Well not really a family, just an old couple who never had children. They used to live here, just like my grandfather said they did, but they've been living in a gated community in Mexico for the last few decades."

  "Gated community in Mexico?" I asked.

  "Yeah, I guess it's something rich people do, move to Mexico but live in a walled-off community of only people from places just like where you're from. That way you don't have to bother learning any Spanish."

  "That sounds odd," I said. "Why would you live in Mexico if you didn't want to be around any Mexicans?"

  "Climate?" Nick offered.

  "You can get the same climate in New Mexico or Arizona," I said.

  "Tax dodge?" Nick added, but then he shrugged. "I'm not sure it's important."

  "I guess not. Did they say anything about where they got the wardrobe or why they left it behind when they took the rest of the furniture?"

  "They got the wardrobe at an estate sale in New York City in the 1970s," Nick said. "But they didn't have any paperwork on it, didn't really remember any details, and they'd never had it appraised. They must've suspected it was genuine, but they didn't bring it with them to Mexico."

  "I don't suppose you got to talk to them at all?" I asked. He shook his head no. "Pity. I'm curious whether the thing gave them the creeps or something. Like maybe they thought it was haunted. Did anyone ask why they left it behind?"

  "As best as we could tell, it just seemed like they forgot it here. Is that a magic thing? Like someone didn't want the wardrobe to be moved, so the Lambeaus just forgot it existed?"

  "I don't really know," I admitted. "I'm still really new on all the stuff. I think I told you before I moved here, I didn't know that any of us was even real. It's only been a few weeks. I'm still trying to catch up."

  "Is there anything, in particular, you need me to find out about that wardrobe?" he asked.

  "Are they gonna put it back in the apartment? In case I need to take another look at it or something?"

  "I don't know," Nick said. "Once it gets taken out of evidence, it will be up to the family what happens to it. If they don't want it moved to Mexico, they'll probably just sell it. If you wanted to let them know that you are interested in purchasing it, I could pass that information along."

  "Yes, do that," I said. Not that my monthly allowance was enough to buy genuine antique furniture from the palace of Versailles. But I was pretty sure there was a household budget for such things when they were magical. I would have to ask Mr. Trevor.

  "So anyway, from the point of view of the police investigation, the wardrobe was pretty normal. Especially compared to the man's body," Nick said.

  "I didn't get a real close look at him," I said. "I didn't realize how few details I had taken in until I was trying to investigate him further. I couldn't see his clothes very well in the dark. Did he appear to be wealthy, or working class, or something else?"

  "Well, his clothes are strange," Nick said.

  "From the 1920s, yes," I said. "I noticed his hat."

  Nick made a noncommittal sound; his attention focused on bobbing his teabag up and down in his tea mug. I took a sip of my own tea, still too hot. Then Nick gave me a sidelong look, taking in the burgundy dress I was wearing.

  "His clothes rather match yours; I would say," Nick said.

  "Yes, about that –" but he didn't let me go on.

  "That wasn't the only thing odd about him, though. I doubt they'll find a match for his dental records. The medical examiner joked that his dentist was probably doing it as a sideline to his barbershop business. He had several missing teeth. Others had abscesses that had been filled, but the amalgam was like nothing the ME had ever seen. And apparently he had had his appendix removed, but the surgical scar and x-rays looked so brutal that the medical examiner wondered if the man attempted to do it himself."

  "Could they remove appendixes in the 1920s?" I asked. I wasn't that up on the history of medicine.

  "Apparently, yes," Nick said. "Because I asked. The medical examiner was wondering if perhaps this man had been to some really remote part of the world. Like really, really remote. Third World country wouldn't be remote enough for this kind of surgery. That's when I asked if it was consistent with something that might've been performed in the 1920s."

  "What did he say?" I asked.

  "I think he thought I was joking," Nick said with a sigh. "Or, maybe not exactly making a joke but taking something serious that wasn't meant to be serious. Like asking him what doctors could do in the world of Star Trek, or in the world of Games of Thrones, serious geek stuff like that. So he took it seriously, like a hypothetical, and said yes, what he saw would be consistent with the sort of surgery that might be performed in the 1920s. Different techniques, not so elegant, but they did have anesthesia then. And they did do appendectomies. But Nelson just looked at me like I was insane. I don't think he's bringing me with the next time he goes to talk to the ME."

  He took a long drink from his tea mug, set it down on the table with the slight clink of ceramic against the tabletop
, then looked at me. "So, are you going to explain about your clothes?"

  "I can," I said slowly. "If you want me to. If you really want to know. But think carefully before you say yes. You can't unhear anything I tell you."

  Nick looked at his hands for minute, then looked at me again, not at my dress this time but straight int my eyes. "Yes."

  "So there is a reason why I was brought here," I said. "Like I told you, I didn't know anything about any of this until I came here just a few months ago, the day I met you. Not even then, really. It wasn't until the next night that it was all explained to me. Sophie, Brianna and I were all brought here for a reason. The two of them, they knew they were witches, they had been practicing their magic for years. But it was a complete surprise to me. And it's more than just being a witch. We have to be here for a very specific reason. We need to use our magic to protect a very specific thing."

  "And this has something to do with 1927?" he asked.

  "Yes, it has everything to do with 1927. I don't know how or why, but the old witch that lived here before we came here, the one who died and left us this place, she created a sort of portal through time. You wouldn't be able to see it; I don't think you'd even be able to sense it. I couldn't even for a long time, and technically I'm a witch. But there is a bridge in the backyard that connects this place to the exact same house, only in 1927. And when I couldn't find out anything about the wardrobe or the man that disappeared from here, I went back to 1927 to have a look around. Of course, going back in time, I have to dress to fit in. So."

  Nick didn't say anything for a long time. I didn't want to rush him, and I was willing to answer any question that I could if only he would ask.

  At last, he drained the last of his tea, set the mug down with another clink and got up from the table.

  "Nick?" I asked.

  "I think I better start digging into some really old case files," he said. "Research. But it will probably draw less attention than actually asking these crazy-sounding questions of the medical examiner."