Always

by Jude Deveraux

  “Amazing,” Darci said.

  For a while they were silent as they stared over the porch rail toward the town. Just down from them was what was probably Main Street, cute and quaint—except for the piles of horse manure in the street. Darci thought that maybe a peek into a hospital might jolt Jack back to reality. Had doctors learned to wash their hands by this time?

  “Anyway,” Jack said after a while, “Lavender got her father to get the buggy out and we went to where I’d left you sleeping. No one asked what or why so it made me think they were used to…”

  When he gave Darci a sidelong glance, she wanted to shout, Not fair! “Are you saying that no one said anything because they’re used to my doing weird things?”

  “I’m not sure, but since you didn’t exist before today, you might be able to make up whatever you want to be.”

  “But no one thought it was strange that your sister was sleeping in the woods and you couldn’t wake her up?”

  “Apparently not.” Jack was smiling. “When we got there, you were just as I’d left you, sound asleep. I picked you up and put you in the backseat of the buggy. You traveled back to the house with your head in Lavey’s lap and your feet in mine. And for the whole ride, Lavender and I just looked at each other. We never spoke a word, but it was the most exciting time in my life. Better than any foreplay I’ve ever had or given.” His voice lowered. “She’s a virgin and we’re waiting for our wedding night. Can you imagine that happening in our time?”

  “What then?” Darci asked tightly. She was glad for Jack to experience such happiness, but she kept thinking, He will never voluntarily leave here. Could she return to her own time alone? Did she have to return with Jack? Did all three of them have to return together? She, Jack, and Lavender’s angry spirit? If she had her powers she could have found out this information in an instant. But here she had no powers. Here she had nothing extraordinary or unusual. Annoyed, she said, “What happened then?”

  Jack had carried Darci into Lavender’s house, put her on the couch in her parents’ living room, and her mother’s two sisters had all hovered about her, reviving her with smelling salts.

  “They smell awful.”

  Jack grinned. “Young women fainting isn’t unusual in this time. It’s your undergarments—which I’m not supposed to mention. They’re too tight. On you, that is. These clothes feel good to me, but I think the reason everything is strange to you is because you didn’t exist here before so you have no memories as I do.”

  Unnecessarily, Jack said, “I don’t want to return to the twenty-first century. I want to stay with Lavender. And I really don’t want to talk about returning.”

  “I’m not sure it’ll be our decision whether we leave or not.”

  “Then whose decision is it?” Jack snapped.

  “Whoever made this happen.”

  “Your Devlin?”

  “I don’t know that he has enough power to do something like this.” But maybe Henry does, Darci thought. Since she’d met Henry in Alabama she’d begun to think that he might have more power than anyone else on earth. Had Henry sent her—and Jack—back to the past for a reason?

  “Do you know where the box is?” she asked.

  “It’s in my room but the key is missing. When I woke up, before new memories came to me, I looked for it on the ground. I looked everywhere but I couldn’t find it.”

  Darci sipped her lemonade and thought back to when she’d first found the key. She’d been walking with her father when they’d passed an antiques shop. She’d felt as though she had to go into that shop. Curious, she’d entered and was drawn to a little ceramic man, about four inches high. He was in a bowl full of dirty, broken dishes and glasses. “There’s something inside it,” she’d told her father. When they got home, her father had used a hammer to try to break it open, but the ceramic didn’t even crack. Frustrated, he’d looked at the object under a magnifying glass and thought he saw some markings on it. Since the little man was too dirty to be able to read, her father had taken it to the sink to wash. The second the water touched the little statue, the outer covering dissolved and inside was the key.

  Darci wondered what was supposed to have happened as opposed to what did happen. She knew she was supposed to find the box in Jack’s father’s house but she’d had no intention of opening it while she was in that house. In fact, it had crossed her mind to go to Henry in Alabama and open it in his presence. But Jack’s interference and the spirit that had escaped Devlin had changed all that.

  Try as she might, she couldn’t believe that it was meant for all three of them to go back in time. Maybe the spirit that had so clung to Jack had known what the box was for and the spirit had meant for her and Jack to return. Did that mean that Darci’s return was an accident? That Darci wasn’t meant to go back with them?

  She glanced quickly at Jack and kept her thoughts to herself. All she knew for sure was that she must return to her own time. She had a daughter, and her missing husband and sister-in-law were in the twenty-first century.

  As she thought of Jack’s story, she wondered if he’d been sent back because he needed to be. Obviously, he had to solve some things in his modern life. If he solved his problems with the angry spirit that had been hanging around him all his life, then what? Would he return to the twenty-first century and take over his father’s job of being a philanthropist? The way things were now, if his father died, Jack wouldn’t claim his inheritance and his relatives would get everything. What evil would they do with all those billions?

  As Darci looked at Jack she decided to tell him as little as possible about what she was planning to do. She knew what love like his felt like. If someone had told her that something—anything—was going to take her away from her husband, she would have…

  Unbidden, Darci remembered that horrible night in the tunnels when she’d had to kill four people. She didn’t want to remember what she’d had to do to keep Adam from being taken from her.

  Yes, if Jack felt the same way about Lavender, then it would be better not to press the issue of his leaving her. He just might save Lavender by pushing Darci off the roof. Ha ha.

  When she picked up her lemonade glass, her hand shook a bit. It was scary not knowing whether other people’s intentions were good or bad. And it was scary knowing that she couldn’t use her mind to control anything.

  “Is it all right if I look around?” she asked.

  “Sure,” Jack said, smiling. “I plan to spend every second with Lavender so you’re free.”

  Standing, Darci smiled back at him and she was glad he couldn’t read her thoughts. She was going to do all that she could to find her way back to her own time.

  Chapter Nine

  AFTER A TRIP TO THE OUTHOUSE—WHICH MADE Darci harden her resolve to get out of the nineteenth century—she went through a side door into the house.

  It was a nice house, sparse by modern standards, but she liked the furniture. It was newly constructed but it still looked old. She’d never been able to live with antiques before because she’d felt every emotion of the past owners. Every tear anyone had shed near the objects came to her when she touched them.

  But not now. Now she ran her hand across the smooth, clean surfaces and felt nothing but the wood. Looking about, she saw that every surface seemed to hold a piece of crochet and she hoped she wasn’t the one who was supposed to produce the things.

  She walked through the living room—or the parlor, she thought—to the entrance hall and the staircase. Pausing for a moment, she wished she could sense whether anyone was near or not. She didn’t like having to rely on her eyes and ears to know whether or not she was being spied on.

  She heard no one, saw no one, felt no one, but still…still, she felt, well, creepy in the empty house. She knew Jack was on the porch just on the other side of the door, but she didn’t want to be so cowardly as to ask him to go upstairs with her.

  As she climbed the stairs she thought, So this is how other people feel all the
time. Many people had told her she was brave and she’d thought maybe she was. But now she knew she wasn’t. All the people who had no powers and went through life not knowing if danger was near were much braver than she was. Right now she was feeling that someone was watching her, and not being able to feel who it was was making the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.

  “Devlin!” she hissed under her breath. She’d rather deal with a cantankerous spirit than with whatever was or was not lurking in the shadows.

  When Devlin didn’t appear, Darci ran up the last three steps.

  The first door she opened was her bedroom. She knew it was hers from the lovely four poster with its huge crocheted canopy, and the pretty upholstered chair by the window.

  When she realized how well the room suited her, she gave an involuntary shudder. Someone who knew her had planned this.

  “Devlin!” she said again. “Henry!” She waited but heard nothing, saw nothing.

  Why had this been done to her? A test? But a test of what? Why had she been taken from her daughter, from her niece? From her search for her husband?

  Had she been sent? Or was it an accident? If it was an accident, why hadn’t someone come to rescue her?

  She called for Devlin again, even threatened him, but he didn’t appear.

  Darci looked through the wardrobe at her clothes. There weren’t many dresses and each one contained probably twenty-five yards of fabric. Hot, heavy, and binding, she thought.

  At last she turned to look at herself in the mirror. She’d been afraid of what she’d see. In modern times she’d known that Jack’s face wasn’t his, that it was a beautiful mask, but Lavender seemed to think that’s how he’d always looked. It had made Darci wonder what she looked like.

  Her first glimpse made her sigh in relief. Her eyebrows were thick and her lashes were so blonde you could hardly see them, but she looked the same as she always had. Her hair was pale blonde, no highlights, and there seemed to be an enormous amount of it. But on the bureau top was a little bun of hair so maybe the lump on the back of her head was artificial. At the sides of her face were long ringlets that to Darci’s eye looked ridiculous.

  She touched her hair but was careful not to disarrange it. Wonder who twists it into this shape? she thought, and hoped she wasn’t responsible for doing it by herself. She could barely manage a blow-dryer, much less ringlets and an artificial bun.

  She thought of the pretty red-haired maid and wondered if she doubled as a hairdresser.

  Leaving the room, Darci explored the other three bedrooms. The bedroom next to hers was Jack’s. “A shrine to Lavender” came to her mind as soon as she opened the door. Nearly everything in the room seemed to be about her. There were four photos of Lavender in silver frames, and there were many knickknacks scattered about, all of them seeming to have something to do with her. There was a pressed flower stuck in the edge of the mirror, a curl of hair inside a tiny wooden frame. A few well-played-with toys were on top of an old cabinet. Toys he’d played with with Lavey?

  A tall bookcase contained what looked to be medical texts. Had John Marshall wanted to be a doctor? What had stopped him? He couldn’t bear to be away from Lavender long enough to go to medical school?

  On top of his bedside table was the silver box—the box that had caused all Darci’s current problems. As she slipped it into the pocket of her dress, she thought that she could easily hide a helium balloon inside the voluminous skirt.

  The first bedroom across the hall had the blandness of a guest room. She closed the door and went to the fourth bedroom and instantly knew that it was John’s father’s room. Since the room had an empty feel to it, she thought she’d ask Jack what he remembered about the man. It didn’t seem as though he was planning to attend his son’s wedding tomorrow. That no one had mentioned him seemed to mean they didn’t expect him to be there.

  “There’s another woman,” Darci said to herself as she left the room, closing the door behind her. “He has a mistress, someone he can’t introduce to the family, and he stays with her. Everyone knows it but doesn’t mention it.”

  “Yes, Miss?”

  Darci jumped half a foot at the voice. She’d been unaware that anyone had been near her. When she had her power, that never would have happened.

  Clearing her throat, she looked at Millie, and thought how with the right hair and makeup the young maid could be beautiful. She wasn’t like Lavender, who was gorgeous when she woke up, but—

  “You wanted something, Miss?” Millie asked. She had a feather duster in her hand.

  “No, I…Do you know when my father will be home?”

  “Why, Christmas,” Millie said, seeming to be surprised that Darci didn’t know that.

  “Ah, yes, of course. Uh, what do you think of my hair?”

  “I can do it for you now if you want.”

  Relieved, Darci smiled. “No, thanks.” Her head came up. “What’s that smell?”

  “Sorry, Miss, but Cook is making peach jam today. I’ll tell her to close the window.”

  “No!” Darci half shouted as she went to the stairs. “I’ll tell her myself.” She gave a quick smile to Millie, then hurried down the stairs, following her nose to find the kitchen.

  She opened a door to a scene out of a BBC movie. The kitchen was large, with an enormous wood stove against the far wall, and a huge, heavy wooden table in the center of the room. On the floor were many baskets full of peaches that were ripe and fragrant. The tabletop was covered with jars and huge bowls, and two women were slicing and packing the peaches.

  Darci hadn’t realized she was hungry until she smelled all those heavenly peaches. The aroma made her sway on her feet.

  One of the women, the shorter, lighter-weight one, hurried forward and led Darci to a chair at the end of the table.

  “No need to faint again today,” the older woman said, wiping her hands on her apron. It didn’t take any guessing to know that this woman was the cook. “Hurry up, Emmy!” she ordered the younger woman. “You know what Miss Darci’s like. She can out-eat any farmhand. Where she puts it all no one knows, but she can certainly tuck it away.”

  For a moment Darci felt near to tears of gratitude. It wasn’t real, but here at last was someone who seemed to actually know her.

  Within seconds a plate was set before her. It had thick slices of cheese, cold roast beef, three kinds of pickles, slices of tomatoes still warm from the sun, and spiced crab apples.

  “Now, go on,” Cook said. “Master John’s off with his Miss Lavender so no one’ll see you in the kitchen with the help. So now, dear, tell us every word of what’s going on at the Shay house.”

  I’m the house gossip! Darci thought, at once horrified and delighted by the news.

  “Did you see the wedding dress?” Cook asked.

  “No,” Darci said, her mouth full. Not one thing on her plate had been pasteurized, homogenized, frozen, packaged, or picked before it was ripe. She thought she might slide under the table from the pleasure of the taste.

  “Of course she didn’t see it,” Emmy said. “That Miss Lavender ain’t gonna let nobody see that dress of hers.” Her eyes twinkled. “Except our Master John, that is.”

  Darci started to speak but when she bit into the crab apple, she closed her eyes to the taste.

  “He’s not seen it,” said a voice full of anger. “Oh, pardon, Miss,” Millie said, then ran out of the kitchen.

  Startled, Darci looked at where Millie had been. “What’s her problem?”

  Emmy and Cook looked at each other at Darci’s odd phrase. Cook recovered first. “She’s being left behind. She wanted to go to work for Miss Lavey after the wedding, but Lavender hired some cousin of hers, so Millie has to…uh…”

  “Stay behind with me?” Darci asked.

  “It’s more excitin’ at Miss Lavey’s,” Emmy said.

  “Now that’s not so. I’d rather stay here than go there any day,” Cook said.

  “That’s because you’d have to
make all them fancy little cakes,” Emmy said. “You’d rather cook for Miss Darci than half a dozen of them fancy friends of Miss Lavey’s.”

  “Can I help it if I like working for somebody who’s not popular?” Cook snapped, then turned red. “Oh! Beg your pardon, Miss Darci.”

  In the embarrassing silence that followed, they looked in horror at Darci, but she just waved her hand to let them know it was all right. Wonder what makes me weird in this century, she thought, sighing.

  Still embarrassed, Emmy and Cook began moving quickly about the kitchen while Darci ate. Okay, she thought, trying to push aside her personal feelings and concentrate on the problem. It was early afternoon so she had hours before she was supposed to return to Lavender’s for tea. Jack had said Darci was free. But free to do what?

  Her first thought was to go to a graveyard. Maybe if she concentrated she could make contact with a spirit or two and maybe they could get a message to Henry. Or maybe they could call Devlin. But then she knew from experience that ghosts were afraid of Devlin. And, too, ghosts responded best at dawn, not in the middle of a sunny day.

  Anyway, maybe with the way I am now I’d be afraid of Devlin, she thought gloomily. Maybe I’d be afraid of all ghosts now that I have no power.

  “Well, somebody has it!” Cook said loudly as she put a four-inch-wide piece of warm peach pie in front of Darci.

  “Has what?” she asked distractedly.

  “My biggest bowl, the one with the zigzag design on it,” Cook said. “Someone has it because it’s not here.”

  Darci paused with a fork full of pie on the way to her mouth, her eyes wide. Yes, she thought, someone has it. Maybe she had no power but someone somewhere did. Maybe not power as she had—used to have—but maybe someone could at least conjure a ghost or two. How much power did that take?

  Emmy and Cook were over their embarrassment now and were going back to work. They were no longer asking Darci for the latest gossip about Lavender.

  Who? Darci thought, and how? How did she find out who had any power? Did these women know?