by Jadyn Chase
She paused for effect. I couldn’t decide if she expected me to answer, so I just said, “I’m listening, Allison.”
“I’m going to go into the other room and get my computer.” She held up her hand for silence. “Don’t pester me with a bunch of irrelevant questions. I’m making the decisions right now. I don’t know what kind of women you’re used to dealing with—no, forget I said that. I can imagine what kind of women you’re used to dealing with, but none of that matters now. I’m going to get my computer and then you and I are going to have a serious talk. When I get back, I expect to find you sitting right where you’re sitting now without moving. Understand?”
I lowered my gaze to the floor. I could see from her manner that she was not one of the women I was used to dealing with. She certainly hit the nail on the head there. Whatever I was used to no longer meant a thing. I had traveled out of the world I knew into something foreign and unfamiliar. I had to rely on her if I hoped to make sense of all this.
She dipped her chin once in a brief nod and slipped out of the room. She shut the door behind her and left me alone with the enormity of my strange situation.
She returned a moment later with what looked like a large black book. She sat down in the desk chair and opened it in front of her. “Now I’m going to ask you some questions. I trust I can count on you to tell the truth.”
“Absolutely, Allison.” I bowed my head one more time. I seemed to be doing that a lot. “I am completely at your disposal.”
She ignored that and started tapping on the book. “You said you came from Dover Castle. What is your last memory from there?”
I looked up at the ceiling. “I woke up and got into that skirmish with some guards and children and what have you.”
She waved that away. “Before that. What’s the last thing you remember from before you woke up and got into the skirmish?”
“Well….” I cast my mind back in time. “The last I remember, I was standing in the Great Armour Hall with my father, my mother, my sister, and my three brothers. We were discussing the fortifications of the town. That’s when I started feeling a little light-headed. I don’t remember anything after that.”
She observed me over her book. She didn’t blink. “What year was it when that happened?”
“It was 1840,” I replied. “Everyone knows that.”
She shut her book with a click and faced me. I didn’t like that look at all. “It’s 2020 now, Thomas. That was one hundred and eighty years ago.”
I had to think hard to understand what she was saying. “But that’s absurd. How can it be? I mean, I just woke up.”
“Think about it, Thomas,” she murmured. “How do you explain everything that’s happened since you woke up? Something must have happened to you that made you fall asleep. Look.”
She opened the book and swiveled it around. I found myself gaping at what looked like a page out of newspaper except there was no paper. The printing appeared on a flat piece of glass.
“This is an article about your family. It says you and most of your family all disappeared from the Great Armour Hall in 1840. Your sister Mary was left alive. She claimed she knew nothing about what happened to you, but that could have been a lie to cover up what actually happened. Whatever it was that made you light-headed must have put you to sleep. You’ve been asleep all this time and you just woke up.”
My hand flew to my head. I felt dizzy now. “I don’t understand you, Allison. Are you saying….?”
“You have been asleep for one hundred and eighty years. I don’t know what made you wake up, but you’re awake now.”
“But what about the…?” I stopped. I didn’t want to tell her about the dragon. She was my only friend in the world. I didn’t want to do anything to frighten her off.
“Can you remember what you were doing before you fell asleep?”
I kept rubbing my head, but that did nothing to clear my thoughts. “I was…. I mean, my father was reading a letter. It got posted to Dover Tavern and one of our retainers brought it to us, but someone forgot to put any return address on it. We all thought it was strange.”
“What did it say?”
“My father read the letter for all of us to hear. I remember it as if were yesterday. It was yesterday.”
Her voice took on a hard edge. “What did it say, Thomas? This could be the only way to figure out what’s going on with you.”
“It said, ‘You Sheltons will never plague this town again’. That’s what it said.”
She nodded more to herself than to me. “Someone may have poisoned you or something. Just don’t ask me what kind of poison could preserve a human being alive for one hundred and eighty years? It doesn’t make sense. Anyway, tell me some more about what happened when you woke up. Did you see anything that could give you any indication as to how you got onto the second level?”
I collapsed back on the couch. This was all too much to take in. “I woke up in the old pump chamber. I was in a sort of wooden coffin. It fell over and broke or I would never have gotten out. Now that you mention it, there were five other coffins in the room, but I didn’t see any sign of life. I suppose I was too stunned to think straight.”
She got to her feet. “Either way, you’re here now and we have to decide what to do.”
I jumped up, too. “But, Allison, if my family is still alive, I must find them. They could be running around having the same…. the same pickle I’m having now. I have to get back to Dover as soon as possible.”
She held up one hand. “You’re not going anywhere dressed like that. Sit down and I’ll get you something to wear.”
She stormed out without waiting to discuss the matter. She wound up being gone a lot longer this time. That left me sitting on the couch pondering everything she told me.
One hundred and eighty years! How could I be in 2020? My stomach ached thinking about my family out there somewhere experiencing all the danger and confusion that plagued me these last few days.
Did whatever made me fall asleep turn me into that dragon? How could it? As Allison mentioned, no substance known to man could accomplish that.
Then again, if someone had asked me, I would have said no substance known to man could make a man sleep for that long and wake up as if no time had passed at all.
Allison barged into the room and tossed a handful of clothes at me. “Put these on. It’s not much, but it’s all I could find at short notice. Once you look presentable, I can take you shopping for something else. Just…..” She cast a wary glance at my dressing gown. “Just take that thing off. You’re making me nervous.”
She let herself out. It took me several minutes to fathom the articles she gave me. As near as I could make out, the first was some sort of jersey that pulled over the head. It hung loosely around my frame, but at least it covered my torso. I laid aside that hideous dressing gown and hoped to God I would never see it again.
The second article resembled trousers about ten times too big. When I put them on, they plumed out to the sides like something a clown might wear at the circus. How she expected me to go out in public wearing them, I couldn’t fathom. At least I didn’t have to worry about them falling open, though.
A few moments later, she entered again. She picked up the dressing gown between her thumb and forefinger and held it at arm’s length. She wrinkled her nose at it and bore it away without further ado. I hoped she would incinerate it.
When she returned for the fourth time, she brought a dish with some class of food on it. I didn’t recognize it, but at least she brought another cup of tea with it. That girl could make tea. I’ll give her that.
I took my first sip. The taste brought home to me at last that I was safe, that no men with guns would storm the house and try to kill me. That taste infused comfort and relaxation into my bones.
Allison sat across from me and observed me in silence while I drank it. After that, my hunger overcame my scruples and I ate…whatever it was. I bit back my cutting remarks as t
o its constituent ingredients. Allison offered me hospitality when no one else did. The least I could do was accept it.
By the time I finished, the sun began to set outside the office windows. “It’s getting late. We should both turn in. We can work out the details tomorrow.”
I looked around the room. “Where shall I sleep? Do you have a spare room?”
“You’re sleeping in here,” she informed me. “You can sleep on the couch.”
“The couch!” I gasped. “I couldn’t possibly.”
She straightened up and fixed her steely eyes on me. “You can sleep on the couch or you can sleep in the shed. Those are your choices.”
I turned away. This really was the ultimate humiliation. When I did, my gaze fell on a bookshelf behind my head. A bunch of color images lined the shelves. One of them depicted Allison with her arms around a young man about her age.
My nerves prickled studying it. “Is this your fiancé, Allison?”
“Fiancé!” She spun around from the doorway. “I don’t have a fiancé. Who are you kidding?”
“Why not?” I returned. “You’re beautiful and smart and generous and brave. Why shouldn’t you have a fiancé?”
She snorted and shook her head. “I don’t have a fiancé. I don’t even have a boyfriend—a sweetheart, you might call it. I’m way too busy.”
I frowned at her. “How could you be? You do nothing but sit at that desk.”
A lovely blush washed over her cheeks and she lowered her eyelids. “I just never have. I guess I spend too much time on my career. I don’t even really have friends.”
I cocked my head to study her. “That is odd. You seem a marriageable girl to me.”
She burst out laughing. “Maybe in your time I’d be marriageable, but not here. I’m an old maid—at least, if I’m not one now, I will be when I get older.”
“Nonsense, Allison,” I returned. “You’re young. There’s still time for you to find the right man.”
“I’m glad you think so.” She put out her hand for the doorknob. “Goodnight.”
“If you don’t have a fiancé or a sweetheart, who is this young man?”
“He’s my brother,” she replied. “You don’t think I’d be putting my arms around a man if he was anybody else, do you? Goodnight, Thomas.”
She let herself out of the room, but she didn’t slam the door this time. She shut it with a soft click. Silence descended over the house. Gleaming golden light streamed between tree branches and through the windows to shine on the books. It reflected off that image.
Allison seemed so happy standing next to her brother. She never smiled like that when she looked at me. I almost wished she would. I could almost wish she would put her arms around me like that. She wouldn’t, though. I wouldn’t, either. That wouldn’t be gentlemanly of me.
6
Allison
Thomas curled his lip pushing scrambled eggs back and forth on his plate. “What in God’s name is this stuff, Allison?”
I waved my hand. “It’s scrambled eggs. It won’t hurt you. Do you think I’m trying to kill you or something? You need to eat.”
He picked up a curd of egg on his fork tines. He held them aloft and watched them jiggle. “This? This is egg? I find that hard to believe.”
“Will you just eat it?” I barked. “I’m not going to do a bunch of research into your eating habits from eighteen-freakin’-forty. You’re in 2020 now, so you can get used to eating our food. Now hurry up. We’ve got things to do today.”
His eyes crept up to my face. “We?”
“Yes, we. I’m taking you into town to get you some real clothes, but I can’t do that if you don’t eat breakfast.”
He set the plate on the office coffee table. I still couldn’t summon the courage to let him venture into the rest of the house. “I’m sorry, Allison. I fully accept your assessment of the situation. I should learn to eat your food, but I’m afraid I can’t eat this. It flies in the face of all reason and it looks disgusting. If you would please just make me a cup of tea, I would be most grateful.”
I got to my feet. “I’ll make you a cup of tea, but when we come back from shopping, you’ll need to eat something before we got to the airport.”
He furrowed his brow. “Air-what?”
“The airport,” I told him. “It’s how we travel. We’re going back to Dover.”
His head shot up. “Dover!”
“Yes, Thomas, Dover. We’re going to see if your family is still in the Castle.”
He launched off the couch so fast he upset the coffee table. Scrambled egg went flying all over the room. “Allison!”
He startled me out of my wits. “Take it easy, dude!”
He retreated in sheepish delight. “My apologies. Thank you so much. I can’t express my….”
“Don’t express anything, all right?” I interrupted. “Just help me clean this up.”
I started picking the egg back onto the plate. He squatted down next to me and extended his hand, but he shied away from actually touching the egg.
When I got it all picked up, we both stood up. I caught him looking into my eyes in a way that made me uncomfortable. “That is the second time you called me by that name. What does it mean?”
I fidgeted. I wanted to get away and take the plate to the kitchen. “What name?”
“You called me, ‘dude’,” he intoned. “Is it some sort of insult?”
I stared at him for a second. For what seemed a long time, I considered if he was trying to insult me instead. All at once, I burst out laughing at the idiocy of this whole situation. I couldn’t write this stuff if someone paid me.
He scowled at me. “Is something funny, Allison?”
I snorted and guffawed more at myself than at him. “Not at all. It’s not an insult. It’s just a….an idiom. It’s a casual name for a man. That’s all it is. It’s like calling someone, ‘man’.”
He frowned again. “Oh.”
I gestured toward the door. “Can we go now…. please?”
His countenance cleared. “Quite.”
I opened the door for him and escorted him through the house. He walked a lot slower this time than last time. He scanned the hall with the utmost interest. He perused the sculptures and pictures and artifacts on display.
“This is really a most impressive collection, Allison,” he remarked. “How do you come to possess all these antiquities?”
“I collect them,” I replied. “I’m a historian, so I’ve always been interested in anything old and ancient. I suppose that’s why I’m interested in you.”
Don’t ask me what made me say that. He whipped around to stare at me and I shuffled my feet grinning like a fool.
Instead of getting offended, a slight smile tugged the corners of his mouth. “Touché, Allison.”
I motioned to the door. “Shall we go?”
He let me conduct him the rest of the way and out front. He halted next to the car and gaped at it. “Allison! Your…. your car!”
“What about it?”
“The window…. what happened to it? It was ruined yesterday and now it’s….”
“I got it repaired.” I held open the passenger door for him. “We won’t have any trouble now.”
He cocked his head. “You got it repaired…. overnight?”
“You can do that in this time. I made a phone call last night and the guy came out this morning while we were talking.”
His brows knit in the middle. “I didn’t understand a word you just said.”
I burst into a grin. “There are going to be a lot of things in this world you don’t understand. Why don’t you get in and we’ll go get you some decent clothes?”
He shook his head and sat down. I shut the door on him like a child. Maybe this is what it felt like to parent a toddler who can’t do anything for themselves.
I got into the driver’s seat and started the motor before I noticed he wasn’t wearing his seatbelt. I opened my mouth to remind him. The
n I realized he wouldn’t know about that, either.
I leaned across him and took hold of the belt. He reared back raising both hands. “Whoa-ho! What are you doing?”
Before he could move, I stretched the belt across his torso and clipped it into the latch. “It’s a safety harness. It protects you in case we have an accident.”
I sat back and took hold of the wheel, but he wouldn’t stop glaring at me. “Don’t do that, Allison.”
“Did you think I was going to try to assassinate you or something?”
“That’s not funny,” he snapped.
I chuckled to myself. “Actually, it was hilarious.”
I drove him to the nearest mall. God only knows what the hell I was going to do with him once I got him there because I knew exactly squat about men’s clothes.
The first part was easy. I took him to a men’s store and handed him over to the salesman. I got to sit on a padded bench for forty-five minutes and let someone else do all the hard work of dressing him.
The sales guy tricked Thomas out in an immaculate suit that fitted his shoulders and waist perfectly. When Thomas turned this way and that in front of the mirror, he looked even more handsome than before—not that he looked all that handsome in my fairy robe.
Now he looked like something that just stepped out of a corporate boardroom. He looked like he had it all down to a science and could twist any woman around his little finger.
He swiveled around to look at me. For a second, I found myself utterly engrossed in admiring him. He looked perfect in every way. His curly brown hair exactly matched his eyes and beard. He blinked down at me from on high.
Just then, the sales guy approached his elbow. “How would you like to pay for that?”
Thomas whipped around. “Pay for it?”
I leaped to my feet. “I’ll get it.”
I hustled to the register while the sales guy bagged up three more suits for Thomas. Thomas inspected the bag handles, but he didn’t take them. I snatched the bag out of the salesman’s grasp instead.
