Passenger

by Alexandra Bracken

  “An American?” he ventured. “Not the best time for a visit, I’m afraid. Unless you’re the first in a new wave of defenses? Are the Yanks finally jumping in?”

  Probably he was joking, but there was a tremor in his voice as he said it, a vulnerability peering through the “business as usual” façade.

  “Not yet,” she said, trying to keep her voice cheerful. “I think it’ll be a while.…”

  And only after we’re directly attacked. But she couldn’t tell him that.

  Etta felt it then for the first time—the fragility of the past. It was an eerie sensation to be in this shop, with its thousands of glass objects packed in so closely around her, and know that one slight misstep on her part could send them smashing to the ground. Etta doubted that telling this stranger about America’s entry into the war, if she presented it as a guess, would be enough to change anything in the timeline. But she wasn’t willing to bet that one small change wouldn’t send the future she’d known crashing down around her, shattered.

  The man knelt to sweep the dust into a bin. “A waiting game, I expect. What can I help you with?”

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Nicholas watching through the blown-out window frame. “I’m wondering if you could point me in the direction of the British Museum?”

  His gray brows rose. “All you’ve got to do is continue east on this road. Make a left on Dean Street and a right onto Oxford Street, which’ll turn into Great Russell Street for you. Doing a bit of sightseeing, then?”

  “Yes—I just wasn’t sure if I was headed the right way. Thank you so much, you’ve been a great help.”

  She had already turned to the door when the man let out a faint laugh. “Miss—come back, miss—I should’ve told you straightaway. Can’t resist a bit of teasing now and then, especially in times like these.”

  Uh-oh. That tiny bit of excitement was instantly scrubbed out.

  “You can go to the museum, but I’m afraid there’ll be nothing to see,” he said. “They took out everything valuable last summer, and it’s been closed ever since.”

  THE BRITISH MUSEUM WAS CLOSED.

  She should have believed the shopkeeper, but it seemed impossible that they could have come all that way only to be met with locked, towering black gates. The somber stone building, with columns and reliefs inspired by ancient times, seemed to fade away the longer they stood there. It taunted them.

  And just to put the last nail in the coffin of possibility, Etta took the harmonica out of the bag at Nicholas’s side—the harmonica she’d stolen out of Sophia’s trunk, seemingly identical to the one Cyrus had used to find the passage in New York—and blew a quick, hard burst of air into it. She strained her ears, trying to lean through the bars of the gate, like that could somehow help her hear a sound that wasn’t there.

  “Nothing,” Nicholas said.

  “Nothing,” she agreed, placing the instrument back in the bag and cinching it shut with more force than was probably necessary. “Even if the statues themselves were removed, I think I was still hoping the passage would be with them.”

  “Perhaps we underestimated your mother,” he said. “I can’t imagine she would have made it so easy for anyone to find.”

  “A World War isn’t enough of a hurdle?” Etta asked, rubbing her hand over her face. “Okay, okay…we just have to think this through.…”

  “I do have an idea, but I’m afraid it’s terrible,” Nicholas said, surveying the lock on the gate and giving it another hard tug.

  “A bad idea is better than no idea,” Etta said.

  “I’m glad you feel that way, because this is an exquisitely bad one.” He turned toward her. “We can go around the back of the museum and I can lift you over the gate. You can then slip into the museum and hold any guards or curators inside hostage, until they give up the information about the location of the statues.”

  “Hold them hostage?” she repeated.

  “Don’t you know? That’s how real pirates like Blackbeard made most of their money. He ransomed whole cities,” he said. “I’ll even teach you how to use the revolver.”

  Despite herself, Etta smiled. “I really appreciate the faith you have in my criminal abilities. But even if I find someone in there, I doubt they’ll be good for anything other than calling the police to pick me up. It seems like the kind of information people would do anything to protect.”

  He leaned against one of the black bars. “Would they really have taken out a whole hoard of valuable items?”

  She gestured to the streets around them—the pockets of rubble, the burned-out husks of buildings that were missing entire sections. “If they thought there was a chance that they might be destroyed or looted, then yes. I know you said you don’t really want to know about these things, but—Germany invades France and occupies Paris for most of the war. France does the same thing with the paintings and sculptures at the Louvre—the curators and volunteers bring them out to different hiding spots in the countryside, which saves them in the end.”

  “When I first learned of this war, I believed Julian was trying to make a joke of me,” he admitted.

  She nodded. “Well, it’s a good thing the museum thought ahead. One bomb, and thousands of years of art and culture could have been lost.”

  A humming buzz overhead drew their gaze. Two planes—fighter planes, by the looks of them—made a pass, their long shadows sweeping over them. Nicholas stiffened beside her, and before she could ask what was wrong, he was already chasing them down the sidewalk, his gaze fixed on them with a wonder that made Etta’s chest ache. She stayed close on his heels, drinking in his wide eyes, the faint smile, until finally the planes disappeared into the horizon.

  “Flying,” Nicholas muttered under his breath, as if still in disbelief. “It shouldn’t surprise me that men continue to think of grand new ways to kill one another, and with greater precision, but…” He shook his head. “If we take this to mean the statues aren’t here, is it worth finding them? Or is it a matter of taking another look at the clue and coming up with a better guess?”

  “I felt so good about this,” Etta said, sounding as stubborn as she felt. “I think we’re on the right track. This is just a little setback. We’ll figure it out.”

  Nicholas snorted. “Little?”

  Etta turned back, studying the spread of steps leading up to the entrance of the museum. It was eerie to see it so deserted. Clouds of pigeons and birds ambled around the courtyard like they were wishing each other a pleasant afternoon. What are you trying to tell me, Mom? Is there something I’m supposed to see here?

  “Hey, this ship hasn’t sunk yet,” she said, tearing her gaze away from the museum. “We may have one sail, but we’re still going.”

  Another laugh. “I appreciate the metaphor you chose on my behalf. I’m not sure how you can keep this…sensibility about you. I suppose when you’re worried, that’s when I’ll know we’re in real danger—”

  Etta had seen the young, stylish couple making their way down the sidewalk toward them, the woman’s coat a bright pop of red against the charred surroundings. The man’s face was hidden beneath the rim of his hat, but he tilted his face up as they approached. Nicholas stepped closer to the gate to let them pass. The man assessed him coolly, before muttering something to the woman at his side as they passed by.

  “Can we leave this place, please?” Nicholas said, teeth clenched. “If there’s nothing here, I think that we should go.”

  But…he’d just been talking about hopping the fence. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” he said. “Please, let’s leave.”

  She looked around, trying to find the source of his concern, but aside from a few men and women standing on the other side of the street, she couldn’t see anything that should have triggered that kind of reaction—aside from the obvious discomfort of being in a strange place, in a stranger time.

  “All right,” she said, putting a hand on his back. He tore away from the touch, and
every inch of Etta’s skin stung with embarrassment.

  Etta trailed behind him as he walked back in the direction they’d come from. She didn’t really think he had a destination in mind; he barely looked up, except to acknowledge the flow of traffic. It wasn’t until she got caught on the opposite sidewalk, waiting for a stream of cars to pass, that he finally stopped and whirled around.

  And as sharp as his anger had been, his relief was soft, palpable, as he waited for her. Etta hurried to his side, but he still didn’t move; his throat worked as he swallowed.

  “You don’t have to explain,” she said. “Everything about this is hard.”

  “It’s not that,” he said, his whole face tight with strain as he eyed the street. “It’s only…you resign yourself to a certain invisibility, when…when you look as I do. I didn’t expect the opposite to be true in this time, and I find I don’t like the attention. The looks.”

  You idiot, Etta told herself. What a privilege it was to never feel like you had to take stock of your surroundings, or gauge everyone’s reactions to the color of your skin. Of course he felt uncomfortable. Of course. And if he’d never been to this time before, he wouldn’t be able to predict people’s reactions.

  “I don’t mean to be so…irritable,” he muttered. When he looked at her again, his eyes weren’t as wild as they’d been before. “But I cannot be what I’m not.”

  “I wouldn’t want you to be anyone but yourself. I’m glad you told me,” Etta said. “I want to understand how you feel.”

  Something she said made him pull back again. He opened his mouth and Etta knew what was coming, the way he would try to wedge more space between them.

  “Miss—”

  “Don’t you dare call me Miss Spencer,” she warned. “It kills me when you act like we aren’t even friends.”

  “We aren’t friends,” he said, and she couldn’t help it—she flinched. One of them had clearly misunderstood whatever was between them. Apparently, it had been her.

  Etta charged away from him down the sidewalk. He caught up to her in three long strides and took her arm in his hand, forcing her to stop. She couldn’t bring herself to look up; she only waited for Nicholas to speak.

  “I forget myself with you,” he said roughly. “I forget the rules. I forget every other living soul in this world. Do you understand?”

  We are not friends.

  Because, to him, they were…

  Her heart threw itself at her rib cage, hard enough that, for a moment, she couldn’t breathe. “I don’t care about rules or anyone else. People are awful—they’re idiots—and if they try to hurt you, I won’t need the revolver. I care about you, and all I ask is that you try not to make me feel like an idiot for it. You’re supposed to…” She clenched her hands to keep from gripping his shoulders. “You’re my partner.”

  Etta risked a glance up, meeting his eyes. That same flush crept up her throat, washing over her cheeks. Her hands hovered above the warm, smooth skin of his strong forearms, and for a moment she wondered what it would be like to touch him there, to ease some softness into the rigid lines.

  Stop it. She knew herself well enough to know that if she kept looking, if she leaned forward like she wanted to, rocked up onto her toes, and he pulled away again…this partner thing would get very complicated, very quickly. And Etta couldn’t think of that now. She couldn’t think of his jawline, the scars and nicks in his skin, his lips as they parted, the way the fabric of his shirt would feel between her fingers.…

  Home, she reminded herself, even as her own skin came alive, prickling and sensitive to the cool autumn air.

  “Okay,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest, looking back in the direction of the museum. “Glad that’s settled. Back to business.”

  Nicholas raised a brow. “Hardly, but I take your point.”

  The afternoon was creeping on, and they needed every hour of the day. She didn’t want to try to imagine where they would have to sleep if they were caught here another day, and she also didn’t want to think about how easy it would have been to find out the statues’ location by plugging it into a search engine. Or even just asking Alice, who had always given the Internet a run for its money in her breadth of knowledge and speed of recall.

  The thought of Alice gripped her, pinned her in place with a weight she couldn’t fully shake off. Think, think, think.…She should know this. She must know it—she’d felt something looking past the gates to the solemn museum, a flutter of awareness.…

  But when Etta closed her eyes, trying to picture the empty courtyard, what she saw wasn’t the deserted steps or daunting locks. Instead, she was on her back, on the couch in her living room at home, looking up at her mother’s paintings on the wall. The third one down, square in the middle, was of this very same scene. Birds scattering as a younger Alice walked through them.

  The answer seemed to drift down from the sky like a lone feather, landing right on top of her head.

  No, she thought, no…

  It couldn’t be that simple.

  The clue was most likely about the Elgin Marbles, as they’d thought. But to find them, to find the passage, she’d need to do what she and her mother always did when they needed something explained: ask Alice.

  Alice, who had grown up in London during the war.

  Alice, whose father was a curator at the British Museum.

  Alice, who had shown them the house she’d grown up in at least three times.

  She turned toward Nicholas, trying to steel herself to tell him without going to pieces, but his gaze was fixed across the street, where a man in a trench coat and hat stood leaning against a gleaming mailbox. There was a folded newspaper in his hands, but he didn’t seem to be reading it.

  “What’s wrong?” she whispered, watching Nicholas’s shoulders grow rigid.

  “Start walking,” he said, voice low. “We need to keep moving.”

  “I know where we have to go,” she told him. “Just follow me.”

  Etta wasn’t sure when she noticed it, when the suspicion curling at her neck like a stray strand of hair became strong enough to force her to look back over her shoulder. The man with the trench coat was matching their pace. A woman in a rich brown suit drifted in and out of sight, but always reappeared.

  Nicholas nodded, giving her the last confirmation. They were being followed.

  Etta took in the street around them, searching for a place where they could talk, when a burst of familiar red caught her eye. Without stopping to explain herself, she lifted an arm and waved, flagging the bus down.

  “Etta—”

  The driver waved back in acknowledgment as she rushed to his window. The scrape of Nicholas’s hurried steps trailed behind her.

  “What is this madness?” he asked, his teeth gritted.

  The window rattled open. “Entrance’s at the rear—” the driver began.

  “Does this bus cut through Kensington?” Etta asked.

  The bus driver was an older gentleman, his belly almost large enough to touch the wheel. But he had an open face and a friendly smile. “It does indeed, love. I’ve got no official stops, though. The conductor will be able to tell you how much you owe. You just give me a smile and a wave and I’ll let you off.”

  The entrance to the bus was open, at the vehicle’s right rear. Etta hauled herself up using the pole, and, after an uneasy look, Nicholas followed.

  Etta should have pulled him into the nearest seat and just sat. Instead, she tried to move them toward the front, where the driver would have a better view of her, and she would have a better view of the road. But she’d forgotten that while she had seventeen years of bus-riding experience, Nicholas had none. The moment the bus pulled back into traffic, he swayed drunkenly, nearly taking out a little boy and an older woman with a bag of groceries.

  “Excuse us,” she said, gripping his arm and dragging him upright. She nodded to the supports hanging from the ceiling. “Grab those—just go slow.”

  Ge
tting to the front of the bus was a sluggish, lurching process, even for someone used to the heaving decks of ships. Nicholas collapsed onto the seat, a river of sweat working its way down the side of his face. One hand clenched the back of the seat, the other her knee.

  “My God,” he shouted over the roar of the engine. “What is that smell?”

  A man in uniform, likely the conductor the driver had mentioned, came down the stairs from the upper level. He had a kind of rack hanging around his neck, with small, brightly colored tickets held in place by small springs. “That would be the petrol, lad.”

  Nicholas gave Etta a look of utter betrayal. “Will we suffocate before we arrive?”

  The conductor shook his head, laughing. Etta forced herself to laugh, too, flashing Nicholas a warning look. But he’d clearly recognized his mistake—he pressed a hand to his forehead and sighed at his own slip. “Destination?”

  “Kensington,” said Etta.

  “Two pennies each.”

  To her surprise, Nicholas dug into his bag and turned over what looked to be actual copper coins, not the gold she’d expected to barter with. The man dutifully dispensed their tickets and moved on to the other new passengers.

  “Exchanged the gold and some of my payment,” he explained. “We’ve enough to get by.”

  “But that was your payment for bringing Sophia and me to New York,” she said, guilt slicing through her.

  He waved a hand, dismissing this. “Focus your concern on the guardians who’ve already managed to track us here.”

  “The man with the newspaper was definitely a guardian?” she pressed, somehow already knowing the answer. “Are you sure?”

  “I’ve never been to this year,” he said in a low voice. “I haven’t met the Ironwood guardians who call it their home, but what other reason could he and that woman—the one in the brown suit, did you see her? What reason could they have for tracking us?”

  It seemed so unfair that Ironwood’s guardians had already found them. Etta sighed, leaning her forehead against the seat in front of them. So much for getting ahead and keeping her movements and travels quiet from the old man.