by D. L. Koontz
From the station she headed east out of town, journeying about a mile when she saw two men walking. Drawing near, she recognized one as Oliver Kenton, the kind porter at the Springs Hotel. She pulled to a stop.
“Good day, gentlemen.”
While Oliver tipped his hat and offered a greeting, the man with him whistled and circled the motorcar. “Ain’t that a spiffy piece of metal, Ollie? That’s no hayburner. Must give a nifty ride.”
“Turner, Mrs. Shaw is a guest at the hotel,” Oliver said through gritted teeth.
Turner went white and wrenched the hat off his head. “Oh sorry, ma’am. Didn’t mean to beat my gums.”
Oliver shook his head in dismay and directed his next comment to Libby. “Mrs. Shaw, this is Turner White. He works in the gardens at the hotel.”
Turner seemed a simple, genuine sort, so Libby replied, “No worries, Mr. Turner. And it’s nice to meet you. Where are you two off to?”
“Everett,” Oliver answered quickly, “a town about eight miles that direction.” He pointed down the road. “We both need a new pair of shoes, so we thought we’d do the walk together.”
Libby swallowed that surprising bit of ambition. “You’re going to walk eight miles to purchase shoes. But why don’t you shop in Bedford? There are stores there.”
Oliver looked a little flustered, but still responded with warmth in his voice. “Everett has a shoe factory with discount prices.”
Libby held her smile, hoping Oliver wouldn’t see that she felt bad for them. “May I offer you two a ride?”
Turner’s eyes shot open. “Oh yes, ma’am. Much obliged.”
Oliver, however, pulled Turner’s hand off the door knob. “No, ma’am, it’s too generous of you. We couldn’t impose on you like that.”
“Don’t be silly. You’d be doing me a favor. If I go to Everett on my own, I might lose my way back.” She never would, but they didn’t have to know that. “Besides, it will take you all day to walk.”
That logic convinced Turner that a ride was in order. He reached for the handle again.
Again, Oliver intervened and stopped him. “No, Turner. We haven’t money on us to pay the lady. We agreed to walk.”
“Tell you what,” Libby said. “I seem to be collecting a lot of things and I do not have enough storage space in my new room. You said you were a woodworker, Oliver. How about some basic bookshelves—I’ll supply the wood—in exchange for the round trip? Do you have tools?”
Oliver’s delight at the offer showed on his face, his smile reaching his ears. “Oh indeed I do, ma’am. I haven’t had an opportunity to work on anything in a long time. I surely appreciate it.”
He looked at Turner, and Turner stared back, a puzzled look on his face.
“Well?” Oliver scolded. “Get in!”
Turner looked like he was ready to shoot back a retort, but thought better of it, opened the door, and climbed into the back seat.
They returned mid-afternoon. After they climbed from the car, Oliver leaned back into the car through the open window. “I surely do thank ya for the ride, ma’am. I hope you understand. Vera and I live on a budget. I could pay more for the shoes here in Bedford, o’ course, but she’s had a terrible cough and I just don’t know how much it’ll cost for a doctor’s visit.” His face flushed and he looked away.
“Smart planning,” Libby said with a smile she hoped put him at ease. “Why waste good money? Say, why don’t you stop by soon? I have an herbal concoction for coughing that Mr. Lochery showed me how to make. It’s all natural. You’d be doing me a favor because I’m wondering if it works. Meanwhile, I’ll ask Dr. Berger to look in on Vera. The doc owes me a favor.” It was a lie. If anything, she owed Maude.
Oliver yanked his hat off his head again. “Why, thank ya, ma’am. I appreciate that. We’re in the first house west of the hotel, down Sweet Root Road.”
After dropping them off at the hotel, Libby found Maude and Rose and took them to town for an early supper where they toasted Leon’s hasty and permanent departure. “Schadenfreude,” Libby quipped as they clinked glasses. German for deriving pleasure in someone’s pain. Maude shot her a knowing look, while Rose acted like the word meant cheers or good luck, because she repeated it and knocked on the wooden table.
Afterward, they stopped at the drug store, and Libby and Rose introduced Maude to Hardin Lochery.
When they departed thirty minutes and three chocolate floats later, Hardin stopped Libby, taking her by the arm. “Those two.” His whispered voice was blunt and perplexed. “They are your friends?”
She gazed at him, wondering where he was going with this. “Yes.”
“But, you—the three of you—are so different.”
Libby shrugged. “Friendship doesn’t always mean being alike. Sometimes it simply means enjoying your time together.”
A frown stamped his face as he pondered her words. She had never considered before the aloneness of his life. Everyone that came into the shop was there for a transaction, a purchase, a need. She softened her voice. “They are my friends, just as you are my friend, Hardin.”
“We are?” As soon as he said it he caught himself, shaking his head as though to remove the surprise he’d heard in his own voice. “Yes, we are. Of course.” A pause, and then, “What...what is it that friends do for one another?”
Libby smiled. “Whatever they want. Activities. Conversations. Sometimes just doing things side by side.”
He seemed to like that and he stood taller. “Then, we are friends.”
She nodded. “Yes. And now I better go.”
But as she turned, he still held on to her arm. “Perhaps you could stop by. Later, tonight. After hours. I plan to blend some oils for making soap. One with spearmint and patchouli, and another with orange and vanilla. You expressed interest in that once.”
Libby hated to decline, hated to dash the eagerness she heard in his voice at this concept of friendship that was new to him. But, she did, with a promise to herself to make it up to him later. “I’m terribly tired. I had hoped to retire early tonight,” was all she could offer.
The truth, however, was that it was equinox, and she planned to spend the evening at the Crystal Spring, waiting for Andrew’s return. Earlier in the week, she’d purchased clothes for him during a trip to town, and told Davis when he called—through abbreviated language due to potential unwanted listening ears—she would undertake the duty this time of watching the spring. Davis had hesitated, but when she assured him she would keep her pistol at her side, he agreed.
Andrew didn’t come.
A few minutes past midnight—after four hours of sitting on the ground and keeping vigil by the springs, and hitching her breath every time the water gurgled differently or reacted to slight breezes—she wiped a lone tear from her face, collected the bag she’d prepared for him, and returned to her car.
She stashed her things in the Auburn and got behind the wheel, breathing deeply, quickly, willing herself to remain calm and accept the inevitable. If he was going to come, he would have by now. He would have taken the water as soon as nightfall hit.
Wouldn’t he?
She vowed to shed no more tears, and started the car. She would not fall apart. He had told her he might not be able to make it back this soon.
The thing is, it had already been three months. What if she began to forget what he looked like?
She put the motorcar in gear and steered it away from the Crystal Spring, heading back to the hotel. The intense blackness of the night sky matched her mood. Sleep would be almost impossible. When she came to the first crossroads, she found herself turning right and heading to town instead. A drive might help. Maybe Hardin would still be up. There were no other cars on the road and the moon illuminated the outline of Bedford as she drew near.
The little town slept. Only the wan glow of the streetlights announced when she arrived at the edges of the hamlet.
A form wavering in the sky caught her eye and she leaned forward
over the massive steering wheel. Something dark gray swirled and shifted like a ghostly entity against the star-lit night.
It looked like smoke rolling upward above the long row of buildings. She accelerated and hurried her car onto Juliana Street. Three blocks down, a jagged line of a yellow and red light danced about. She watched in horror as it flickered and jumped, fevered in its movements.
Fire!
Hardin’s building was engulfed in flames. He had told her once that he lived above the store, reached via a stairway in the back. She honked her horn frantically as she hurried the motorcar down a side alley, pulling behind the row of stores.
Scrambling from the car, Libby screamed his name. Rats dashed along the foundation and vanished into the shadows. Faintly, above the crackling of the flames, she heard voices in front yelling, “Fire! Hurry!” Good, the alarm had been sounded, but that alone wouldn’t save Hardin. If he was inside, she had to wake him and get him out.
She grabbed a towel from the bag she’d prepared for Andrew, wrapped it around her hand, and grasped the metal knob to the building’s rear door, tugging and praying it would open.
It did, and she hurried in.
Around her, planks dropped from the edges of the ceiling and hit the ground, spreading showers of embers and sparks, and igniting other wood in its path. Wood crackled sending ash floating on waves of smoke. She snatched the towel from her hand and held it to her face to breath.
She sprinted in the direction of the stairway, but was impeded by a wall of flames, stretching right and left as far as she could see. When the flame danced down in its high-then-low jerky waltz, Libby saw, for one harrowing heartbeat, angry rolls of blaze and billows of smoke pouring down the stairway. Despite the towel, blistering smoke filled her lungs, and she coughed and gagged.
She zigzagged left in a frenzied rush.
Then right.
She squinted through the furling black air, her eyes watering and stinging, to where she saw the fire at its lowest. Perhaps she could jump through it. Make a mad dash and soar clear of it to get to the stairs.
But, a figure on the other side appeared, staggering zigzag toward her. She froze and in that second could see the figure was stocky like a man and that he was weak and blackened. The figure wailed incoherent sounds of pain and panic.
She yelled, “Hardin!”
He turned to her and howled, “Help me!” He staggered toward the door she’d come in.
She hurried to the left, trying to follow him but was stopped by more debris. She dashed right and leaped over more blackened wood, then hurried around another flame, dodging falling planks and embers that spread like confetti in a wind.
Through the wall of flames, she watched Hardin teeter several feet, exit through the door she’d left open, and fall.
“Hardin!” Her own raspy voice startled her from her stupor and spurred her to dash through an opening on the right to reach him. She dropped to the ground beside his upper torso.
Her lungs burned and her chest wanted to explode, but she focused on him. The flames behind her illuminated his body, and what she saw made her stomach lurch. Puffy, blackened scabs and angry red welts covered his upper body and arms. Severe third-degree burns. He could never survive this, and until he died, he would experience unbearable pain.
She had to do something to help him! But, what?
The water! It was equinox. Perhaps it wasn’t too late. In that split second when a million thoughts can race through the mind, she pictured herself somehow getting him into her car and driving him there. But, if he died before taking the water or even in it, she’d be left with his dead body and probably accused of foul play. Maybe second-degree murder.
She shouldn’t interfere with history!
But, how could she not? This man had wondered if people who feel as though they’ve lived lives before their own are inheriting their ancestor’s memories. He had a theory to share with the world.
She sprinted to her car, and pulled it closer, repeatedly yelling for Hardin to hold on, and to fight! Once beside him, she opened the passenger side rear door and crouched down, lifting him by grasping under his arms from behind. He shrieked in pain. With adrenaline coursing through her veins and tears streaming down her face, she blubbered, “I’m sorry, Hardin. I know it hurts. I promise the pain will end soon.”
She heaved and pulled him into the car, dragging him backward onto the back seat as gently as she could. She opened the opposite door, climbed out, and raced around to shut the first door, then climbed behind the wheel.
The trip took forever.
Hardin moaned, at times screamed, and she bit back her nausea and fear and horror to reassure him. Libby sobbed and, through tears, implored him to hold on. “I’m so sorry. I want to save you. I’m taking you to the water. It works Hardin! I know it does because it brought me here from 2016. Think about that when you’re in the water. Go to the future, Hardin. Stay alive!”
Near her destination, she pulled off the navigable road and bounced the car across the rutted meadow to pull beside the Crystal Spring. She turned off the car, set the brake, and exited in a frenzy, wrenching open the rear door to extract Hardin. Grasping him as she had before, she pulled him out. He didn’t make a sound. Was he unconscious? Dead? She dragged him backward, up the slight incline to the edge of the spring.
“Please, Hardin,” she muttered as she struggled and heaved, her mouth near his ears. “Live, and, forgive me!”
She stopped at the edge, laid him flat, and said through her sobs, “I’m so sorry, Hardin, but this, this is what friends do,” then she pulled him beneath the surface of the water. She fell as exhaustion overcame her, but scrambled back up and dragged herself out of the water. Thanks to the bright moonlight, she was able to see him. Her gaze seared into him despite the tears flooding her eyes.
In the stillness of the night, a sound of twigs snapping came from behind her and she pushed up with her hands to twist her gaze in that direction. She heard it again, near the copse of trees about thirty feet behind her.
“Who’s there?” she called.
Panic struck. Had someone seen her? Would they try to stop her? Was she in danger? She’d left her pistol in the car. Could she get to it? Who would be here this time of night? The pale man? Martelli? She’d been a fool to think she could get rid of him in the way she did, without repercussions. Or, perhaps the mayor had a goon watching her? Was this the prowler she’d heard outside her room late one night?
Could it be Andrew? Maybe he arrived before she got there and was standing back, unclothed and waiting.
She looked back at Hardin. His body still laid there in the water. He should have disappeared by now. She scrambled to her feet, jerking her gaze back to the trees. She was about to yell “Andrew” when two arms grabbed her from behind pinning her tight and dragged her backward away from the spring.
She struggled and flailed her legs, but the stranger’s hold was too strong. All she managed to shake loose was her hat.
Despite her struggle she watched Hardin’s body disappear before she lost sight of the water. The water had taken him!
Overcome by the many conflicting emotions coursing through her, she felt her body go limp and watched the world go black.
Chapter Twenty-Five
1926
Sheriff Brogan Harrow squeezed the steering wheel in a rigid grip as he glanced at the young woman seated beside him in the 1920 Chrysler police patrol motorcar. Moonlight poured through the side window, illuminating her features, but he didn’t need light to recall that thick russet hair, those large, clouded milk-green marble eyes with their intriguing touch of blue, or full lips of deep cherry that had quivered when she stared at him in the alleyway in Bedford weeks ago.
Who was she? Her name was Libby Shaw. But who was she really? N.C. had once described seeing Rose and Mrs. Shaw at a play at the Springs Hotel. He’d distinctly said “Mrs.” Where was her husband, and why did her marital status bother him?
Who w
as the real Libby Shaw? The unassuming concerned citizen who had coolly assessed the Gilbert Harris murder scene with an astuteness that startled him? Or the attractive, well-heeled visitor at the hotel—who, as his observations revealed, drove one of the finest motorcars he’d ever seen, preferred dresses in shades of blue, and played the violin (that tidbit purely by accident from N.C courtesy of a proud Rose)?
Or, was she the lady who, unlike the other guests at the hotel, did notice those who existed beyond her glittering lodging? The one who enjoyed simple homemade remedies, friendly conversations with the townies, salads for lunch, occasional chocolate ice cream, and countless acts of charity in which she would stealthily drop candy in children’s parcels and money in the purses and pockets of the poorer townies? He’d arrested many pickpockets through the years, but until she came along he’d never seen this reverse scenario of putting money into people’s pockets. Yes, he had observed it all, without her knowing.
He couldn’t help but be aware of her when she frequented town. He hadn’t sought her out. Certainly hadn’t stalked her. He just somehow always intuited when she was there. Further, he’d never quite shaken that disturbing feeling he’d experienced when he’d met her in the streets of Bedford. She’d been unreadable, mysterious. Then again, she’d seemed as disoriented by their encounter as he had been. When she’d turned and left the crime site, he’d felt a sense of loss unlike any he could remember.