by Mez Blume
With a wave of panic, I swallowed a huge gulp of air and couldn’t even shout. My head was spinning like a carnival ride, but somehow I managed to pick up my feet and run after Sophia.
“Sophia!” I croaked.
She turned and waited for me to catch up with her.
Gasping, I asked, “What year did you say it was?”
She laughed merrily, like she thought I was the one playing a game now. “Why it is the year of our Lord Sixteen-Hundred and Six, of course.”
I looked right into her truthful blue eyes, and I knew. This was no reenactment. Somehow, without meaning to, when I’d fallen through that painting, I had fallen back in time. Somehow, my wish to be a part of that other girl’s world, of Sophia’s world, had come true. And what was more — the thought chilled me like cold water running down my spine — I had no idea how to get back to my own world again.
5
Vagabond
“My goodness, are you well?” Sophia asked, reaching out for my arm as my legs collapsed beneath me like a flimsy folding chair’s.
The world was spinning again, and it was all I could do to keep breathing, in and out, in and out. How could it be the year 1606? I needed to get help, to tell Sophia what had happened to me. But then, what if she didn’t believe me? What if she picked up her many skirts and bolted to the house when I tried to explain what had happened? After all, I could hardly believe it. But here I was, and it was no good sitting in the wet grass wondering how I’d got here. There was only one thing to do: I had to try to explain to Sophia and hope she didn’t run for it.
She listened with a very serious expression, and when I described the painting and the winking gypsy, her eyes became wide and she gasped. But still she didn’t scoff. She just stood back a little, her eyes fluttering over my clothes and hair like I was making sense to her for the first time. When I finished, I waited for her to tell me I was insane, but to my amazement, she just cupped her cheeks in her hands and whispered, “Tom Tippery.”
“What’s that?” I wasn’t sure if Tom Tippery was a person or an old-fashioned way of saying good grief, or for Pete’s sake.
She clasped her hands together beneath her chin as if praying. “Tom Tippery is a travelling mercenary painter. I used to visit him and his daughter Bessy at his wagon where they live. But lately Tom has served as an assistant to the artist Master Van Hoebeek who is here taking the family’s portraits, and I’ve hardly seen him or Bessy since. Master Van Hoebeek keeps him so very busy.”
“By wagon, do you mean a sort of shepherd’s hut?” I was relieved Sophia hadn’t taken off running, but I was beginning to wonder what all this had to do with my predicament.
She nodded. “You’ve seen it?”
I shook my head. “Only in the painting.”
“Ah. Of course. It used to be that the wagon stood just under those trees, there.” She pointed over my shoulder. “But it moved after Master Van Hoebeek arrived, and I’ve not been able to find it.” She clenched her fists in front of her. “I should never have gone there. But I never thought … Still I knew I shouldn’t have said so much! But they were so kind to me, and Tom so good a listener, and I—”
“Sophia!” The shrill voice rang out again, this time from an upper window.
I dropped down, hoping the bracken would conceal me.
“What in heaven are you doing out there? Get inside at once!”
I peeked at the window to see the woman’s pinched face scowling out from under her maid’s cap.
“I am coming, Nurse Joan!” Sophia stepped in front of me, shielding me behind a wall of fabric. “I must first have a word with Digby about my horse. Beg pardon of Master Van Hoebeek and his muse for keeping them waiting!”
Once the pinched face retreated and the window slammed shut, Sophia turned and pulled me up by the arm. “Come, Katie. I’ll explain Tom and the painting as soon as I can. We’ll hide you in the stables for now. Once Master Van Hoebeek has finished for the day, we’ll think of what to do next. It may be I can steal a word with Tom after my sitting. If your coming here truly is his doing, he must tell us what to do about it.”
Sophia took her skirt in one hand and grabbed my hand with the other, and together we ran for the stables with Britannia bounding ahead of us.
The stables I’d seen that morning with Pop and Oscar had become nothing more than a great big storehouse for garden tools and paint cans, closed off to the public by a wire fence. But now, as we neared the building’s grand archway, my nostrils filled with the sweet perfume of hay and horse. The snorts, hen clucks and whinnies of a living barn sounded like sweet music to my ears. This at least was something familiar, and I felt a little of my terror from falling into the past melt away.
“It’s beautiful!” I gasped, walking under the arched doorway and taking in lofty beams and tidy stalls and — at last! — dozens of the most gorgeous horses.
“Are you a rider yourself then?” Sophia asked.
“Yes. I mean …” I gulped. “I … used to ride quite a lot.”
Several horses turned their heads as I followed Sophia across the cobblestone floor. A lanky boy leaned against the wall with his hat pulled over his eyes, his long legs stretched out in front of him and his arms crossed over his steadily rising-and-falling chest.
Sophia cleared her throat and said kindly but loudly, “Master Digby.”
Nothing.
She turned to Britannia and, pointing to the boy, ordered, “Tannia, mount.”
The dog padded over to his bench, reared up on her back legs, and planted her paws firmly on his shoulders before snatching the hat off his face. His uncovered eyes grew as big as moons with fright.
“Mercy! The devil’s hound! It’s found me out!” he sputtered, flailing his arms and legs helplessly under the enormous puppy’s weight.
“Tannia, to me!” The dog padded back to her mistress and dropped the hat at her feet.
“Digby, this is Mistress Katherine. Katie, Master Digby.”
“Master, Ha!” The boy, who looked around sixteen or so, crept along the wall and made a grab for his hat. “I ain’t master of nothing nor nobody.” With a yank he freed the hat from Tannia’s teeth and stood triumphantly. “But I’m at your service all the same.” He made a rather absurdly pompous bow before pulling it back down over his mass of straw hair.
Sophia ignored his sarcasm and went on. “I’m very sorry, Digby, there’s no time to explain, but would you please see that my friend is comfortable here and that no one disturbs her until I return?”
“I am yours to command, me lady.” Digby made another melodramatic bow, this time with a flourish of the hand.
Sophia shook her head. “Never mind Master Digby’s antics. I’m sure he can be relied upon.” She gave him a playful warning look, then took my hand in hers. “I must go at once before Nurse Joan comes after me with a switch, but I shall return to you at first opportunity!” And with a curtsey and a swish of skirts, she was gone.
When it was just me and Digby, he stood there rubbing his hand over his stubbly chin as if not sure what to make of me. “So … you’re from …?”
“Oh.” I felt suddenly self-conscious of how strange my blue jeans, t-shirt and tennis shoes must’ve looked to him. “It’s a long story.” Hoping to avoid having to make up an explanation on the spot, I asked, “Maybe could you introduce me to some of your horses?”
He sneered. “None of them’s my horse. I just look after them. But I can introduce you all the same.”
For the next hour, I almost completely forgot I was stranded in the wrong century. This place was heaven. The barn was the most beautiful I had ever seen, with golden light pouring down through the upper rafters and lighting up the haystacks, glinting off hanging rows of pristinely polished saddles and spurs. But best of all were the horses!
We stopped at stall after stall, Digby pointing out the particular features of the Spanish racing horses or the hefty Dutch draught horses. There was a row of handsome Scot
tish nags that served as the family’s personal riding horses.
I felt the old hunger to ride growing monstrous within me. I hadn’t forgotten Mum’s orders to stay away from horses during the holiday … but then, surely it didn’t count in 1606, did it? Technically, Mum hadn’t said it yet, and wouldn’t for another few hundred years. In fact, when I thought of it that way, in 1606, I hadn’t fallen off Gypsy in the New England Equestrian Championship and spent a month in the hospital! And that thought gave me another idea. I raised my hand to my head and felt along the side of my scalp. It was still there. The long, bumpy scar beneath my hair had travelled back in time with me.
I dropped my hand to my side when Digby suddenly turned around before we’d reached the last stall.
“And there you have it, Mistress Katherine. ’Tis each and every one of the Earl’s horses. Best kept in the land, make no mistake.”
“What about that one?” I asked, gesturing to the final stall Digby had turned his back to. It was filled up with a giant black stallion. He was a head taller than the nag beside him, and his coat steamed in the summer heat. “Is he one of the family’s riding horses too?”
“Ah him.” Digby whistled and stepped hesitantly in front of the stall door, keeping a good distance between himself and the black giant. “That beast you see before you is called Vagabond, and he is the most notorious horse in all of England.” He paused, apparently waiting for some amazed response.
I noticed this too late as I was distracted by a long gash down the horse’s neck. Digby carried on with his tale. “Belonged to a breeder who sold him to the King’s guard. Said his own daughter rode him daily and never had the least trouble with him. It must have been a lie, for Vagabond gave the King’s guard more trouble than any horse before him. No amount of whipping or lashing would tame this one.”
My mouth dropped open. So that’s where the scar came from. A lash. “But he probably just missed his home and the little girl who used to ride him. Lashing him would only make him worse!”
Digby only shrugged. “Tell that to the King’s guard if you like! They would have shot him, but the Earl heard of it and brought him here. Thought he might prefer the hunt to guarding. But old Vagabond is no better here than he was at Court. It’s a wonder the master doesn’t have him destroyed. Nobody’s daring enough to try to ride him, and he’s not good for any labour.” Although we were alone, Digby leaned in close and cupped his mouth. “They say he’s possessed with a demon.” Then leaning back, he shrugged. “I reckon he’s just Irish bred.”
Suspecting Digby was having a bit of fun with me, I forced my face to stay perfectly relaxed. “Why do they say that? What does he do that’s so bad?”
“What does he do, she asks? I’ll tell you. Besides throwing off every soldier that tried to ride him in the guard, he has a vengeance for any living creature that crosses him.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “What do you mean, a vengeance?”
Digby widened his eyes and lowered his voice as if to tell a ghost story. “Well, for one thing, he has a nasty habit of pigeon crushing.”
I sniggered.
“’Tis true!” His eyes were wide. “The King’s own groom said to the master, ‘Mind this one in the stable yard. He’ll stow away his grain in his jaws for hours. Then, soon as he’s in the yard, he’ll spit it on the ground and wait as if for the pigeons to come and peck at it. Then, when the poor fowls are least suspecting, Vagabond raises a hoof and brings it down, SPLAT!’” Digby clapped his palms together, making me jump. “All that’s left is bones and feathers … and, you know, entrails.”
I shuddered at the mental picture. But I also felt just a little indignation on Vagabond’s behalf and turned away from Digby to prop my elbows against the horse’s stall door. I looked up into one of his deep, black, intelligent eyes. We held each other’s gaze for an instant, then his nostrils flared and a puff of hot air made me blink. I must’ve smelled very strange to him, covered in whiffs of the twenty-first century. “Are you sure those grooms weren’t telling a story?”
Digby leaned against the stall door beside me and sneered. “I didn’t believe it at first either, but now I’ve seen the menace with my own eyes. Vagabond is the devil in a horse’s hide.”
“I doubt that,” I said, reaching a hand up to stroke Vagabond’s nose. “I’ve heard of the devil dressing up like a snake, but never as a horse.”
Digby threw his arm out and swatted my hand back. “I wouldn’t if I were you. He’s known to bite.”
I drew back my hand, but the urge to touch that horse stayed with me, like a magnet drawing me in. I know it sounds silly, but I felt as though we understood each other. I had lost Gypsy, and this horse had lost the girl who used to ride him. We both knew how much it hurt to be torn away from a best friend. As Digby led me away, I turned to look back over my shoulder and met Vagabond’s still-watching eye.
6
New Shoes
I’m pretty sure my watch stopped working when I fell through the painting, but I heard a bell toll the hour twice before Sophia came back. After my tour of the stalls, I sat and chatted away with Digby. Luckily, he seemed much more interested in talking about himself than asking me questions. Though his mood was jolly enough, I got the feeling Digby wasn’t quite content with his life as a stable hand at Otterly Manor.
“It seems like quite a nice place to work to me,” I offered after a wave of ranting about his daily duties and pining for one morning’s lie-in. “I’m hoping to work in a barn when I grow up.”
He must’ve thought I was joking because a gusty laugh exploded through his lips. But he quickly became sober again. “It isn’t the work I mind so much. It’s not having what they have.” He gestured towards the house-facing wall. “I can play the part of a courtier as well as any one of them! Why, it’s easy!” He jumped up and performed a hilarious series of prances, bows and poses until I was holding my stomach laughing. “All I need’s a pair of fine stockings and a ruff collar! I look almost the twin of Master Frederick, but,” — he put on a very convincing German accent — “he will inherit Otterly Manor along with a title and a life of ease. And I? I will inherit only …” he pointed to a pile of manure — “that.”
After a while, Digby had to get back to work cleaning the stalls and watering the horses. I offered to help, secretly hoping for an excuse to sneak back to Vagabond’s stall. But Digby said the idea of a “lady” cleaning stalls was unthinkable. I told him I wasn’t a lady, just a girl, but it was no use. So I curled up on a sunlit pile of hay in the corner and read The Hound of the Baskervilles until my eyes got droopy.
Just as I was drifting off, fast high-heeled footsteps startled me awake again.
At first I didn’t recognise Sophia. She wore an even fancier blue velvet gown and her hair was all pinned back in a funny hat. But she smiled her same angelic smile when she saw me, and Tannia bounded over to lick my face again.
“Oh, Katherine! I have kept you so long. Tom Tippery was there for my portrait sitting, but when we had finished, Master Van Hoebeek called him away, and I wasn’t able to speak to him! I am truly sorry. But—” she held out her arms which were full of fabric — “I did manage to find you some clothes.” One by one, she showed me the plain white shift and apron, corn blue petticoat and brown shoes. “I hope you don’t mind, but I thought we might best disguise you as my chambermaid. There is so much superstition among the servants, it is better they didn’t see you in your native dress. It wouldn't do to have anyone spreading rumours that you are a witch.”
My eyes must’ve gone wide, because she laid a consoling hand on my arm. “Don’t worry. I shall help you fit in until we can speak to Tom about sending you home again. Now let’s go up into the hayloft. No one will be up there, and I will be your dressing maid.”
I was very much impressed by how Sophia managed to climb the ladder to the hayloft in all her skirts and ruffles as if she’d grown up in a barn. When we’d both reached the top, she showed me to a
corner tucked away behind stacks of hay bales where I could change. Dozens of pigeons roosted in the pitched rafters above me. I changed as quickly as I could, feeling a little exposed with their beady eyes twitching with my every movement. First went on a pair of woollen stockings and the white, cotton shift that looked like an old-fashioned nightgown. Then the blue petticoat which had a dainty bit of flowery embroidery, though nothing as fancy as Sophia’s dresses, and thankfully the skirt didn’t poof out quite so much. I was sure I’d never be able to slip through doors as gracefully as Sophia with a hula hoop around my waist.
“Come out when you are ready, and I will help you with your laces and your apron,” Sophia’s muffled voice offered from the other side of the hay bales. The dress wasn’t uncomfortable, but I wheezed involuntarily when she drew up the laces in the front, and then tied the apron on even tighter. Though she concentrated, I could tell she wanted to ask something. Finally, as she tied the laces into a double bow, she said, “You must be terribly frightened, Katie. To be so far from home, I mean.” Her big, blue eyes looked at me questioningly.
I thought about it for a moment. The funny truth was, I didn’t feel terribly frightened, though I knew I ought to. “I don’t know,” I answered at last. “I guess it hasn’t quite sunk in yet … I mean, I still feel like I’m in the middle of a very strange dream.” Sophia nodded, and I said, “Can I ask you something?”
She took my hand. “But of course! Anything you wish.”
“Why weren’t you, well, more surprised when I told you where I’d come from? I mean, if someone turned up out of nowhere and told me they’d travelled from the future, I’d probably think they were a bit loony.”
