When the Moon Falls

by Kathryn Kaleigh

  And if they lived, they would struggle just like everyone else in the south.

  But if she wanted to stay here, he’d find a way to make it work.

  They would plant cotton.

  Ella squeezed his hand and snagged his attention, smiling up at him. “I’ve always wanted to go west,” she said. “Denver. Where anything is possible.”

  “Denver, huh?”

  Samuel picked up a fallen stick and tossed it into the brambles away from the trail.

  He’d read about the west.

  They said it was booming.

  Anything was possible out there.

  They reached the river and stood on the bank watching the murky water swirling past.

  It had to be better than here.

  If that’s where she wanted to go, then that’s where they would go.

  He had nothing holding him here. Family. But they’d get along just fine without him.

  “All right,” he said. “Denver it is.”

  She grinned at him.

  “Tomorrow we’ll go into town and get whatever it is we need.”

  Samuel barely let her out of his sight. He certainly wasn’t going to leave her here while he went into town.

  He would be devastated if he came back and she was gone again.

  “We can’t leave ‘til the end of the week, though.”

  “Why’s that?” she asked.

  He bent down and kissed her on the lips.

  “Something we have to do before we go.

  47

  Ella looked back over her shoulder at the grand Becquerel house.

  From here, she couldn’t tell that it needed to be painted or that the railing was loose in places.

  “Sorry,” Samuel said as they hit a rut.

  Ella grabbed hold of the wooden seat of the wagon to keep from slipping off.

  Leaving here was significant.

  It wasn’t that they were riding away from the house on a wagon jammed full of supplies pulled by two horses. A cow tied to the back.

  It wasn’t that traveling this way was so much different from the way she’d driven in four days ago.

  It was leaving here like this meant she would never be returning to her time.

  People who went west in the 1860’s rarely if ever went back.

  Once they left, it was for good.

  There was something about the house—where it stood—that had to do with the time travel.

  She’d made her choice.

  There was no going back.

  But she was ok with that.

  She didn’t want to go back.

  She was with Samuel.

  Just looking at him tripped her heart rate up.

  The gold band on her left ring finger glinted in the sunlight.

  The ceremony had been small. Other than her and Samuel, there was his mother and the preacher.

  That was it.

  The equivalent of going to the justice of the peace.

  But Samuel wouldn’t leave with her without them being married.

  Didn’t want to ruin her reputation.

  She shoved the hair out of her eyes and looked up at him.

  He grinned at her.

  “No regrets?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “No.”

  How could she have regrets when her heart was so full of happiness.

  She was married to Samuel Becquerel and they—just the two of them—were going west.

  To make a life for themselves.

  Instead of being part of the rat race that was the modern world, Ella’s life was going to be woven into the background of what made American great.

  In her study as a psychologist, she’d learned that finding something meaningful was what gave a person happiness.

  Well, she’d not only found meaning, she’d found true love.

  She’d had to go a long way—backwards in years—to find it. But it didn’t matter how she got here.

  “So here we go,” Samuel said. “Wife.”

  She laughed and leaned up to kiss him on the cheek.

  He turned and caught the kiss on his lips.

  “Husband,” she said, her eyes bright.

  The sun was bright as they turned along the river road to follow the Mississippi up to St. Louis.

  Riding off into the sunset.

  Starting their life together.

  How about a bonus short story?

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  Want to start at the beginning? Read the first sweet time travel story in the Time Spells Beckon Series.

  * * *

  Turn the page for a preview of Twist of Fate…

  Twist of Fate

  Prologue

  Along the banks of the Mississippi

  1714

  * * *

  "If you're going to kill me, do it now."

  Lightning flashed and thunder shook the earth. Vaughn Dupre cowered among prickly brambles beneath the branches of a hickory grove and squinted through the blinding rivulets of rain washing over her.

  An ancient white-bearded Indian dropped to his knees in front of her and stared into her eyes. His breath brushed her skin.

  She clenched the valise holding her carefully folded wedding dress. She had been on her way to Fort Rosalie to meet the man who would marry her when they had been attacked.

  As she had watched in horror, the Indians had killed those in her traveling party, one by one. Only her best friend and companion had lived nearly so long as she. But now she could see Mary's brutalized body several yards away.

  "Please," she pleaded, "do it quickly."

  The old man shook his head and spoke slowly - deliberately. "There is only one way you can possibly survive. You must travel - through time."

  Vaughn took a deep breath, fear searing her throat. He spoke in French and she understood him. He was trying to help her. Though he was dressed like the Indians, his skin tone was lighter and his kindly features were more like those of the French familiar to her.

  "I can run," Vaughn whispered, her throat closing as she spoke.

  "It would do no good. The Natchee will seek you out and slice your throat as they did the others."

  An image of her childhood home in the countryside of France flashed through her mind. It was followed by a memory of the orphanage where she had spent the last ten years of her life. There was nothing to leave behind and no one to miss her. The man awaiting her would find another wife easily enough. There were many more desperate girls on their way to take her place. She could only pray to God that they would fare better than she and Mary.

  Though it was incomprehensible that she could be sent to another time by this man or anyone else, the alternatives were bleak, at best.

  She knew only one thing - she did not want to die.

  "I beg you, do whatever you can to help me."

  Now that he had her permission, the old man hesitated. "There is no guarantee. I know not where you will go or for how long. You may not even live through it."

  Looking back at the carnage of her friend and former traveling companions, she grasped his sleeve, ready now, to have it done. "If you don't try, I am certain to die."

  "I have seen strange things since I've lived with the Natchee." He spoke slowly, as though his native language fell unfamiliar on his tongue. "Very well. I think I can help you, but we must act quickly.

  "Once the rip in time is made, it may take centuries for it to heal itself. Not only you, but those of your blood may pass through it and possibly without warning. I warn you to be prepared."

  "How will I know?"

  "You won't."

  Suddenly the French Indian lifted his arms and stretched toward the Heavens. He chanted words she couldn't understand and didn't want to. The wind whipped around them in a fury. He held his arms high and yelled indiscernible words to the sky.

  Vaughn looked around her. The Indians would find them now. There was no doubt. The old man's incantat
ion had to work.

  The wind picked up and howled around them. The clouds swirled angrily. Thunder crashed over their heads. He was unaffected by the rain or the wind. His robe made of deer hide swirled around him, but he stood firm.

  Vaughn closed her eyes. She was going to die. She should never have come to this new world. Should never have listened to the call of adventure in her blood. Only by a twist of fate would that very blood not be spilled upon the ground of this untamed territory.

  Her ears rang, blocking out the commotion. Then a curious sensation pricked her skin. It was sunshine. She opened her eyes. There was no sign of rain or wind... or the strange Indian.

  Her clothes were soaked and her hair sodden. Her valise with the wedding dress was still in her hands. She stood up slowly and turned around.

  She gasped. A young gentleman on a large black horse towered over her. He was smiling.

  "You seem to have had some sort of mishap. My name is Nathaniel Becquerel. Perhaps I can be of assistance," he said, stretching his hand out to her.

  Twist of Fate

  Chapter 1

  The minute she walked through the door, Erika Becquerel knew something was wrong. Chandelier lights reflecting off the polished mahogany floor blended with the musty odor of the house to bring back a deluge of jumbled memories.

  But the silence struck her like a cruel blow.

  The grandfather clock stood with a blank expression.

  Silent.

  "Jonathan?" she called out, but a rumble of thunder drowned out her voice. As the noise faded, she set down her bag and dripping umbrella and called out for her grandfather again - louder this time. "Grandpa?"

  No response.

  Frowning, she stood in front of the nearly black rosewood clock and looked up into the faded dial. Its case was decorated with ornate columns. The clock’s face wore a battle scar from the Civil War in the form of a jagged rip between the Roman numerals six and seven.

  The first thing Jonathan did each morning was wind the two hundred year old family heirloom. It was one of his prized possessions. His ancestors had brought it with them when they left France to settle in the colonies.

  Something was wrong.

  A sense of panic gripped her. Jonathan could lie here for days before anyone discovered him. He could die and no one would know.

  She started toward the kitchen, but a sound on the stairs caught her attention. Relief washed over her. Jonathan was alright. She, however, was the victim of an overactive imagination.

  She turned with a smile, but the smile quickly faded.

  Stepping briskly into the foyer, a woman in a loose flowered kimono glared at her through a pair of narrow glasses.

  "Who are you?" Erika asked.

  "That's a good question. Who are you?" the woman echoed, folding her arms across her ample chest.

  "Where is Jonathan?"

  "I will not discuss Mr. Becquerel until I know who you are."

  Erika took a deep breath and slowly let it out. Her leather ankle boots resounded as she walked across the hardwood floor toward the woman and stopped inches in front of her.

  "Where is he?" she demanded, looking down into the woman's cold dark eyes.

  The woman retreated back a step, her gaze darting toward the stairs. Erika immediately closed the gap between them. Her hands clenched at her sides as the tension and fear for her grandfather returned, stronger than before.

  "I want to know who you are and where my grandfather is."

  Jerking her head up, realization spread over the woman's face and her skin blanched to a deathly pallor. For a moment Erika thought she glimpsed fear in her eyes. Then she blinked and the harshness was back. "I'm Mable," she said, "Jonathan is upstairs in his bedroom. I'll bring your luggage in, Erika."

  Erika didn't respond. The woman's sudden change worried her. Yet even more disconcerting was the fact that this stranger knew her name. She’d never known Jonathan to hire help.

  Erika sprinted up the stairs, turned left, and stopped in front of her grandfather's bedroom. A weak cough answered her knock.

  Pushing the door open gently, she stuck her head around the corner. Darting past her feet, Smokey, her grandfather's large gray cat, pounced onto the bed.

  Jonathan Becquerel lowered the handkerchief from his nose. He blinked and a smile spread across his wrinkled face, lifting for a brief instant the veil of sadness in his silver-gray eyes. Almost immediately, it settled back into place. As she hurried to his side, he struggled to push himself up on the pillows.

  "Ah, Erika," he said, "you do look so much like my Vaughn."

  His words sent a stab of pain through her heart. Vaughn. Her grandmother - her friend.

  "Are you sick?" she asked, kneeling on the floor beside the bed, pushing threatening thoughts of her grandmother back into the shadowed depths of her mind.

  In the six months since his wife's death, Jonathan had seemed to grow old quickly. Instead of months, he seemed to have aged years. The sparse hair on his balding head was silver and his eyes were lackluster. Even his skin had taken on an ashen shade.

  "No. No. Just a bit under the weather," he said with a smile that seemed more like a lopsided frown.

  "Who is that woman downstairs?"

  "Mable?"

  She nodded.

  "She's the one your mother hired to take care of me," he said, studying her curiously.

  "Really?" Erika replied, forcing a calmness into her voice she didn't feel. She placed her wrist against his forehead. His skin was cool. "What do you mean she's taking care of you? What's wrong?"

  "I can't seem to shake this darned flu. It's probably just old age settling in." He paused to squint into her eyes, as though to read her thoughts.

  "I didn't know you were coming," he added suddenly. "You haven't been to see me since the... since Vaughn..."

  "I know. But I'm here, now. I'll take care of you." She stood up and leaned over to place her arms around his thin, feeble shoulders. Swallowed the lump in her throat. He'd grown so frail since she'd seen him last at the funeral service. I should have come sooner.

  He patted her back and reached for his handkerchief. "The doctor is coming on Monday. Until then I’ll be ok. And Mable is here. Your mother and you and Bradley all have lives of your own. I don't want to be in your way." There was no self-pity in his voice. She knew he was just stating the facts as he saw them.

  At Vaughn's memorial service, he had been in good physical condition for a man of seventy-three. The deep sadness in his eyes had been there, though. It had become a part of him.

  "Maybe you could stay until Monday though," he said, his face brightening with the thought.

  "I'll try," Erika said softly. She sighed. There was no need to tell him now; she didn't have to leave until Sunday afternoon. Perhaps with two days of her care, he would be able to get up and around.

  He reached over to the nightstand and picked up a key. "Would you mind winding the clock for me? This silence is driving me crazy."

  Erika smiled. "Of course."

  Slipping the key into her pocket, she left him resting, and stopped by the room that had been hers since she could remember. Mable had been true to her word. Her luggage stood in front of the wardrobe. She felt a twinge of guilt at having the woman bring it in for her, especially in the rain, but she quickly shrugged it off. If she knew her mother, Mable was being paid well enough. If Erika had her way, Mable would be dismissed as soon as possible. The woman gave her an eerie feeling.

  Something was wrong. But then nothing had been the same for the past six months. Looking up, she studied the portrait on her nightstand.

  Her grandmother, Vaughn, had been so full of life. Even though the black and white photograph had been taken when her grandmother was still a young woman, Erika pictured her clearly. She saw the slender, beautiful woman staring back at her with a smile that spread upwards to touch her sea-green eyes and a fragile oval face framed with long midnight curls.

  Except for her straig
ht, shoulder-length hair, Erika was a mirror image of Vaughn Becquerel.

  Her mind, still spinning in confusion, returned to the situation at hand. Who was Mable? Why didn't her mother tell her about hiring this woman? They talked often enough; surely she would have mentioned that Jonathan needed someone to help care for him. Determined to find the answers and confront Mable, she got up and started back downstairs.

  Halfway down, she stopped on the landing. The dark clouds had drifted off toward the horizon, and a patch of pale evening sunlight streamed in through the wavy glass in the eight foot window. Placing one hand on the thick indigo French brocade draperies tied back on either side, she leaned her forehead against the smooth wooden frame and rested her eyes. Suddenly dizzy, she fought to steady herself.

  The soft ticking of the grandfather clock drifted upstairs.

  Clouds wafted over the sun and a cool wind whispering through a young oak tree lightly brushed her cheeks and played about her hair. At the sudden loss of the sun's warmth, she opened her eyes. Had the window been open moments before?

  She shivered.

  Beyond the well-tended garden area to the left, fields of sturdy cotton plants stretched to the horizon. There, a wagon stirred up a cloud of dust. Like mounds of new fallen snow, the gray-white cotton covered the land. Workers in straw hats, brightly dyed shirts, and burlap sacks trailing along behind them, bent as they pulled cotton from the open brown shells and dropped it into the sacks.

  Dazed, Erika stared out the window. A movement to the right of the house caught her attention. A girl, not more than ten, sitting beneath an oak tree, was playing with a calico cat. A doll fell unnoticed from her lap. There had been no children here since Erika and her brother, Bradley, had grown up.

  She was startled out of her daze by a flurry of activity below. A black horse cantered into view, chased by two baying red hounds. Coming to a halt beside one of the outbuildings, the tall dark-haired rider slid easily from the saddle and tossed the reins to a black boy who had run out to meet him.