She passed through freezing curtains of rain, darted over towering snow-capped mountain peaks, and drifted over moon-drenched lakes. There were more loud bells, and chimes, and distant ethereal music, and choirs singing in entrancing dissonances.
As she raced toward a green shimmering wall, Trace flung out her arms to brace for impact. With eyes wide in terror, she crashed through a gooey, watery wall, screaming, tumbling, lost and cold, plunging down into an ocean of darkness.
CHAPTER 39
Trace was trembling violently—afraid she’d shake apart and fall into pieces. The pounding in her ears was loud in the silence, but her feet were planted on something solid—a plush carpet? A warm breath of air began to still her chattering teeth. Her first thought was “Where am I?”
Thank God, the world had stopped spinning, her stomach had stopped churning. All was quiet, dead still. With effort, she allowed her eyes to adjust to the murky darkness, as vague images and shapes slowly began to emerge.
As her shuddering subsided, she heard hurried steps descending stairs. She caught a quick breath, and held it, waiting, every sense on alert, eyes struggling to pierce through the dim light.
A ghostly figure loomed ahead, like an apparition. She stared, peering. The figure stood tall and still in the open library doors. The room and reality gradually seeped back into her senses, and she opened her mouth to speak, but had no voice.
“Trace? Trace, is that you?” he said, in quiet apprehension.
Trace stiffened at his voice. The silhouette slowly advanced into the room toward her. From outside, a garden light leaked in from the slightly parted draperies, just enough to reveal the man’s face. Trace gasped.
“Sir Alfred?” she said, the words catching in her tight throat.
“Trace…No. It’s Cyrano. Cyrano Wallace. You’re here… You’ve returned.”
Trace’s strangled thoughts and bold, staring eyes struggled to make sense of what she was hearing and seeing. She felt fragmented and displaced—she was an echo, reverberating, and pieces of herself seemed to be swirling about her head. Other parts of herself still seemed trapped in other worlds.
To her utter shock, she watched the image of Sir Alfred slowly recede and melt away into darkness, as a blue shimmering image of Cyrano Wallace emerged.
“Trace, are you all right?” Cyrano asked. “How do you feel?”
Trace stood mute for a time, unable to process, while she observed Cyrano’s ephemeral vibrations smooth and flatline into the form of the man before her, Cyrano Wallace.
Beating nerves strained her voice. “Where….? Where am I?”
He cleared his throat. “You’re in my home, in the Berkshires.”
“The Berkshires?” she asked, searching the room. She slowly began to recognize that she was standing in Cyrano Wallace’s library. She recalled now. Yes, she remembered this room.
Her moving, startled eyes took in the room, finally coming to rest on Cyrano Wallace’s Mata Hari collection: the Chinese marble sculpture, the ornate opera glasses, the two fur necklets, the silver cutlery and the old French francs. In the hazy light, Trace took in the Mata Hari painting, revealing the exposed woman’s beguiling body and warm, bewitching eyes.
Trace struggled to anchor herself, looking down to examine her body. She still wore her 1917 gray velvet suit, with the flared skirt and coat flared below the waist. Her dark blue buttoned ankle boots were clean and polished, showing no signs of the time travel.
Inevitably, her eyes lowered onto the ring—the Mata Hari ring—and Trace still felt the force of its power—its mysterious, and awesome, and terrible magic.
She was finished with it. She wanted no more of it. Deliberately, she gripped the ring, wriggled it from her finger, and enclosed it in a tight fist, as if to squeeze the life from it.
Trace worked to make a keen appraisal of the room, her eyes sharpening, her head clearing. Once again, she leveled her eyes on the display table and the Mata Hari collection. Resolutely, she relaxed her fist and moved unsteadily toward the table. With trembling effort, she stopped, staring down. In one firm motion, she returned the ring to its rightful place in the collection, immediately backing away, as the glowing ring seemed to be watching her with its single, beseeching eye. Trace felt its dark, beckoning allure, its silent siren call, and she turned away from it. Turned her back on it, forever.
Cyrano had been watching with a strange curiosity, catching her spooked eyes as she looked at him.
“I am so tired, Mr. Wallace. So very tired and exhausted. Can I sleep somewhere for a while? I must sleep.”
It was snowing when Trace awakened in her soft, luxurious canopied bed. With a yawn and a stretch, she sat up to watch feathery flakes drift past her window. She felt a lift when she turned to the bedside digital clock to see it was 8:13am. Yes, a digital clock. It was true. She had returned to her own time. How long had she slept? She had no idea what month or day it was, although it had to be winter if it was snowing.
She eased back, feeling a crashing relief and deep gratitude that she had returned home to complete her life in this time, and not in 1917. She felt lighter, freer, younger. She felt the giddy urge to leap up and dance, grab big chunks of the day, and live her new life to the fullest. She was reborn, vital, and she was curious. What had happened since she’d left this time, arriving in France in June 1916? How much time had passed?
She shut her eyes, as a kind of test. Yes, the old images returned: Mata Hari, Vadime, Captain Ladoux, Nonnie and Edward. But they were vague and fading, and Trace had slept well, with no bad dreams, and no nightmares.
She tossed back the warm comforter, admiring the cream-colored satin nightgown Cyrano had provided for her last night. He mentioned that he’d bought it for Constance two Christmases ago.
Trace belted the matching robe, found some cozy slippers and made her way downstairs to the formal dining room that she easily recalled, as if she’d seen it only yesterday.
Cyrano sat alone, quietly, a cup of coffee before him. When Trace entered, he pushed back his chair and stood, studying her carefully.
“Good morning, Trace.”
“Good morning, Cyrano.”
“Coffee?”
“Yes... Love some.”
Cyrano stepped to his left, held her chair, and she sat.
“I have given my butler, Andrew, the day off, so I’m afraid you’re going to be stuck with me, and my bad cooking and clumsy service.”
He left through a side door, soon returning with a pot of coffee and a porcelain cup and saucer. After the coffee was poured, he sat the pot on a warmer and stood to her side.
“Feeling better?”
Trace put a fist to a yawn. “Yes… Much better, thank you. This coffee just might save my life.”
“Hungry?”
“I’m a slow morning person. Maybe later. Thank you.”
“Very well,” Cyrano said, returning to his chair and sitting.
They sipped the coffee in silence for a time, each searching for the right words to begin the conversation.
“We’re supposed to get about five inches of snow,” Cyrano said, looking toward the windows.
Through the picture window, Trace watched the play of the snowflakes soar and drift.
“I love the snow,” she said, dreamily.
“How’s the coffee?” Cyrano asked.
“Good. Very good.”
“It’s the one thing in the kitchen I do well. I’m not bad at scrambled eggs either. I was often the breakfast chef when Constance was alive.”
In the light of day, Trace took her first good look at Cyrano. Again, she felt that strange, unsettling feeling she’d had the night before—that Cyrano not only reminded her of Sir Alfred, but that he resembled him in many ways, the mouth, the eyes, and the way he moved his head in conversation when listening. It was an uneasy feeling, and difficult to put into thought or words. It was as if Cyrano was floating on the surface of the water, and Sir Alfred lay just beneath its clear,
rippling surface.
Trace assumed it was just an obvious after-effect of time traveling, as she must still be hovering between two worlds, not yet fully present in either. Would it pass?
“You’re looking at me strangely, Trace.” Cyrano said. “Are you sure you’re feeling okay?”
She glanced away, breaking her little trance. “I’m sorry, Cyrano. I’m not quite myself yet. I’m not totally… well, here, I think.”
Cyrano waited for more. He didn’t want to rush her, but he was boiling with an anxious curiosity, longing to hear her story.
A moment later, Trace asked, “What day and year is it?”
“Monday, January 22, 2018.”
Trace shot him a look. “But… how could it be? How long was I gone? You saw me, well, disappear, right?”
“Yes. You simply vanished into a kind of blue misty fog, which lingered in the room for about ten minutes. I searched everywhere for you, and I had Andrew search for you. You simply vanished. That was early yesterday, Sunday morning, January 21st. You were gone an entire day. As you can imagine, I was alarmed. I didn’t know quite what to do. Should I call the police? Should I call your parents? Should I call a medium? I was greatly relieved when I saw you standing there this morning.”
“How did you know to come downstairs? How did you know I had returned?”
“I was asleep, and suddenly I felt your presence. I woke up. It was one of the weirdest things that has ever happened to me, but then… this whole situation has been, to put it mildly, very strange and somewhat upsetting.”
“When I appeared this morning, what time was it?”
“Around one o’clock.”
They heard a howling wind, and Trace swiveled around to watch the snow being blown into a chaotic frenzy.
“Can you tell me, Trace? I mean to say,” Cyrano said, fumbling his words, “well, are you ready to tell me what happened to you?”
Trace faced him, thinking again how uncanny it was that he reminded her so much of Sir Alfred. It relaxed her, made the moment seem familiar and pleasant.
“Would you mind making me those scrambled eggs, Cyrano? While I eat I’ll tell you everything.”
He nearly leaped to his feet, his face brightening. “Of course, I’ll scramble the eggs. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
At the side door, he paused, turning back to her. “Trace, I want you to have a complete physical with my doctor. I’ll make the appointment for tomorrow morning, if that’s all right with you.”
And then it struck her. That sounded so much like Sir Alfred. The pitch and timbre of the voice; the sensitivity, the concern. She gave him a long, penetrating appraisal, looking deeply into his soul, parting the waters, so to speak, to peer down into the depths of a deep, murky lake.
In that pulsing silence, her inner vision cleared, and she was able to see—to truly see—and a cool shiver raced up her spine.
Trace watched in stunned fascination as Sir Alfred took a few steps toward her.
“Trace? Trace, what’s the matter? What has happened?”
Sir Alfred’s figure rippled, faded and dissolved back into Cyrano Wallace.
Cyrano was quiet, straining to understand.
Trace knew now, without any doubt. She was no longer caught between two worlds. She had arrived back into this one, and she was anchored here.
But her time travel journey had bestowed a bizarre gift—a psychic gift. She could see beneath the waters into the past—at least she could see into Cyrano’s past. She saw beyond the veil of this reality to see who Cyrano had been in his past life.
Trace spoke in a dazed wonder, in an unsettling whisper. “Cyrano…You were Sir Alfred Kenyon Bishop. In your previous life on Earth, you were Sir Alfred Kenyon Bishop.”
Cyrano stared, mystified.
They sat at the kitchen table, staring into the middle distance. Snow continued falling, and the wind wheezed around the house, as the hallway grandfather clock bonged eleven times.
Trace had just finished telling Cyrano her entire time travel story, leaving nothing out, and he’d sat in anxious attention through it all.
She’d finished the eggs, toast and coffee long ago, and she pushed her plate aside. They remained silent for minutes, as Cyrano struggled to process the story.
Trace held his eyes to gauge his reaction.
Finally, he mechanically reached for his napkin and blotted his damp forehead. He was noticeably troubled, his eyes moving around the room, as if searching for reason, as if wishing to rerun the minutes back, so he could return to the solid reality he had lived in for 70 years. But there was no going back. That world was gone now—shattered—and this new world, whatever it was, distressed and troubled him.
He breathed out a long, sibilant sigh, refusing to meet Trace’s eyes.
“You do believe me, don’t you, Cyrano?”
He pursed his lips, blinking. “Well, I don’t know. Perhaps you should call me Sir Alfred?”
Trace gave him a questioning glance, then looked away. “Then you don’t believe me, or anything that happened?
Cyrano folded his hands, his eyes coming to hers. “That’s the problem, Trace. I do indeed believe you. How can I not? I saw you vanish before my eyes, and then reappear like some ghost. And some part of me knew you were about to return. I have to believe you, even if I don’t want to believe you. It’s all very distressing. Yes, Constance believed in all this occult business, but I never took it all that seriously. I mean, how can anyone believe in such things, unless they actually experience it? It’s fantastic. It’s upsetting. It’s just, I don’t know, unbelievable.”
He shoved his chair back and stood. “I need something. I need time. Yes, I need time to think about all this, Trace. For God’s sake, I need a drink.”
Cyrano left the room abruptly, and Trace slumped in her chair. Minutes later he was back with two crystal rocks glasses filled with an amber liquid. He handed a glass to Trace.
“What is it?”
“A 25-year-old single malt Scotch. I know it’s only a little after eleven in the morning, but I need it, and you deserve it. Drink it down in a swallow. This is not the time to sip.”
He raised his glass and they clinked. “Well, here’s to old friends. And I mean old friends,” he said, with a humor that helped relax Trace’s nerves. They both chuckled, and then tossed back the Scotch.
Cyrano stared at her, pointing a finger. “I have a confession to make, Trace. When I first saw you standing there in the library the first time, something inside me shifted. You looked and felt so familiar to me. I didn’t admit it to myself then, but I truly felt like I knew you, or had known you. It was a good feeling, a warm feeling. It was a feeling of recognition, of meeting an old friend after so many years apart. Did you feel it?”
Trace stared down at the empty glass, already feeling a comfortable buzz from the Scotch. “I don’t know. I was so fixated on that Mata Hari collection. I was so hell-bent on slipping on that ring. Nothing else seemed to matter.”
“Well, I’ll have to get used to all this occult business, I suppose. I’ll have to admit that, at the very least, we are quite comfortable together. I can’t deny my feelings.”
Trace met his eyes. “I can’t say I feel bad about it, Cyrano. I hated leaving Sir Alfred behind. He… You saved my life. He became a second father to me, my only father in that time.”
Cyrano threw up his hands. “Okay, then. Now that we are good and old friends, Trace, I hope you will come to see me from time to time. You could even stay here with me, if you like, and make this your home.”
Trace smiled. “I will certainly come, Cyrano, and I’d love to stay, but I am an actress, or at least I was an actress, and I have to work in the City. I haven’t even thought about that—any of it. I believe I’m supposed to begin rehearsals on a new show in February.”
“Then stay at my Park Avenue condo, Trace. It has three bedrooms. I was about to sell the place, but I’ll keep it now. You might as well live ther
e. It will be empty most of the time. Go ahead, move your things in right away. It’s got everything you need—all the conveniences and a 24-hour doorman, of course. For that matter, as I think about it, I can come down and join you sometimes. We can go to the theatre, the opera, the galleries, the best restaurants. We can do whatever we want to do. And if you have a boyfriend, bring him along. The more the merrier.”
They stared into each other’s eyes. Finally, Trace went to him, burying her head in his shoulder. He slowly, hesitantly, wrapped her in his arms, and they remained there for long minutes, old friends reunited.
CHAPTER 40
Back in New York, Trace hurled herself into her previous schedule of dance classes, auditions, voice coaching and yoga. She may have been gone for only a day in this time, but in the seven months she had spent in 1916, she had danced and sung little, except when she was with Nonnie. She was surprised how much flexibility and technique she'd lost. Every dance class felt as though she were moving underwater, her voice felt thin and brittle, and her first yoga classes left her feeling stiff and sore.
By the first week in February, when she began rehearsals for the new Broadway show musical, Daydreams, she’d nearly returned to the fit, thin body she’d had before her time travel adventure.
Upon returning to her time, what she’d found most remarkable was that the world had continued on without her, as if nothing ever happened. None of her friends or family members, nor her agent, had missed her because, of course, she’d only been gone for a day. They had simply experienced their usual day, while she had been through what seemed to be years.
The energy, sights and sounds of modern New York City had been jarring at first, but she’d slowly readjusted, and she soon fell into all the familiar rhythms.
During rehearsals, Cyrano did come to the city, and they attended several Broadway shows, as well as performances of the New York Philharmonic and the Metropolitan Opera. They seldom talked about Trace's journey, making a pact between them to focus only on the present.
“The past is dead, thank God,” Trace said, during one of their many dinners in the theatre district.
The Lost Mata Hari Ring Page 27
