Seamus nodded in acknowledgement, wondering why Mr. Grey would swap the order of introductions, as if Seamus were being presented to this Miss Wilde as a social inferior, especially after Mr. Grey’s admonition to be polite. Miss Wilde put her hand out sideways in the manner that Miss Sanchez had done upon their first meeting, as if she wanted to shake hands like a man. Seamus took it and bowed over it. Miss Wilde seemed amused. Mr. Grey hung his duster on a coat rack beside the door and Seamus did the same.
“I have some cookies in the kitchen. I’ll meet you in there,” she said, indicating the front room. The house was modest and would not have a formal sitting room. Mr. Grey and Seamus seated themselves on the sofa and Miss Wilde set a plate of cookies and a stack of cloth napkins on the table in front of them. She then seated herself in the chair opposite, took a cookie and looked inquiringly at Mr. Grey.
“Anything to report?” she asked.
Mr. Grey told her about the shimmering places they saw at the riverbank. Miss Wilde asked for clarification here and there, and listened until Mr. Grey was finished.
“Do you have anything to add to that?” Miss Wilde asked Seamus.
This had gone on long enough, Seamus thought. “When are we going to speak with your colleague?” Seamus asked Mr. Grey.
“I am she,” said Miss Wilde.
“I’ll thank you for not having me on,” Seamus said to Mr. Grey as quietly as he could. He knew that Miss Wilde would overhear, but could do nothing about it.
“Miss Wilde and I work together. We are coworkers.”
Coworkers. Miss Sanchez had used the term for her fellow medical students and the doctors and nurses with whom she worked in her hospital in the future. Seamus glanced at Mr. Grey’s feet, then at Miss Wilde’s, but both had regular shoes on, not the narrow things that Miss Sanchez wore.
Miss Wilde gave an exasperated sigh. “There is no time for this, Mr. Connor. I would ask you to accept the fact that Mr. Grey and I work together for the time being and withhold your reservations for later when you may ponder the oddity of my social placement at your leisure.”
Perhaps this was why Mr. Grey so easily listened to Miss Sanchez’s theories about Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Buchannan instead of brushing off her ideas as uninformed or silly. He was used to women of that sort. Well, Seamus wasn’t raised by an addle-headed ninny himself. His mother and sisters could read, write, do sums and even quote the Bible and Shakespeare. More to the point, they were clever and wouldn’t back down an inch for any man. All except Branna, he thought.
“Very well, Miss Wilde,” he replied.
“The traveler is secure, for now,” said Mr. Grey.
“Good,” said Miss Wilde. “Under no circumstances can the traveler be lost.”
The way Miss Wilde said the word “lost” held more meaning that Seamus liked.
“I don’t intend to lose her,” Seamus said. “Miss Sanchez is safe at my house, and there she’ll stay until we can find some way to send her home. I won’t let anything happen to her.”
“Of course you won’t,” said Miss Wilde fondly. She seemed to have forgiven him for slighting her.
“I need one of those engines,” said Seamus. “If I have one, I may be able to learn how it works and find a way to send her back.”
“That is the idea. That is why I asked Mr. Grey to bring you here. Two of our agents have managed to get an engine. Huginn volunteered, and Pangur Ban insisted on going with him.”
“How did they get inside the manufactory?” asked Mr. Grey.
“I’m not sure, but they are probably the only ones who could.”
“From what I understand, the machines are rather large. How did they manage it?”
“They managed,” said Miss Wilde, taking another cookie.
“If you could get a machine, why wait until now?” Seamus asked. “Why not days ago?”
“We couldn’t do it before now,” said Miss Wilde. “We have people watching the McCullen Manufactory, but getting an engine is difficult. So now you have one and can examine it. You can learn why they are exploding. And please, have a cookie. I made them special.”
He took one to be polite but did not eat it. “Perhaps you think I am a fool,” he said.
“Quite the contrary,” said Miss Wilde.
“But I can see that you aren’t from here, just as Miss Sanchez is not. Am I correct?”
Miss Wilde just looked at him and patted her mouth with a napkin.
“If you are both from somewhere, somewhen else, then why can’t you take Miss Sanchez back to her home the same way you both came here?”
“Is that what you want?” Miss Wilde asked.
“What do you mean? She needs to return home, simple as that.”
“True. She does. But we cannot do that,” said Miss Wilde
“Why not? Did you walk through one of those shimmering holes also? Are you both trapped here as well? How many of you are there?”
She held up a finger to silence him. “I cannot tell you more, and I am sorry for that. Getting an engine to you is the best we can do. But I am able do something additional for you. Something I think you’ll like very much.”
She took a clean napkin from the stack and wrapped up the remaining cookies, tying a little knot at the top. As she did so, Mr. Grey went into the hallway and brought back both of their coats.
Miss Wilde handed the tied bundle of cookies to Seamus. “For you and Miss Sanchez and Hazel. I’m sure you’ll enjoy them.”
Chapter 25
“It is Sunday, and the girl will be going to Mass on Sundays for as long as she lives under my roof,” said Seamus. Felicia had finished changing Hazel’s bandages and stood in front of the girl’s bedroom door, glaring up at him. He was being completely impossible and she was having trouble keeping her temper.
“You said she was healthy enough,” he said. “She can walk around just fine. She goes.”
“She can, but you can’t force her to go,” Felicia said.
“Like hell I can’t.”
“Like hell? You talk like that in church too?”
The man was insufferable. He may have been born some time in, what, the 1830s? But forcing a little girl to go to church when she didn’t want to seemed too harsh, especially with what Hazel had been through. The child needed peace and quiet, not to be dragged around the city.
“Now listen,” said Seamus. “Long after you have gone back you your own heathen world, Hazel will still be here with me. And I will give her a proper upbringing. And that means going to Mass on Sunday mornings.”
“No matter what?”
“Well, there are exceptions. If one is deathly ill or incapacitated. But other than that, it’s a mortal sin to miss Mass on Sunday.”
“And you believe that?” she asked. He gave a half shrug and looked sideways. “I think I see,” she said. “Your parents took you, rain or shine, and you want to do right by Hazel.”
“That’s what I said.”
“Let’s talk over here,” Felicia whispered and pulled Seamus’s sleeve. She led him to the landing on the stairs and spoke as quietly as she could. She knew Hazel was listening from inside her bedroom and didn’t wish to be overheard. “She’s scared. Terrified to go out of the house.”
“Because of that man. Well, just let him try to take her back. I saw that bruise on her face. He won’t be doing that again, I assure you.” His eyes burned and just as in the cathedral attic, he seemed to grow larger. “I’d like to see him try it.”
“I have to agree with you there,” Felicia said. “And I wouldn’t stop you from giving that man a matching bruise on his own face. But understand what she’s been through.”
“It would do her good to see the filthy blighter bleeding out his nose and lying on the pavement among his own teeth. It wou
ld do her a heap of good.”
“I think what would do her a heap of good is time to be away from him. When she was delirious in the hospital, I asked her questions. Some of what she said didn’t make a lot of sense, but eventually I got the gist. Her uncle didn’t just hit her and kill her dog.”
“Her dog? He killed a little girl’s dog? Was it old or infirm?”
“No, you’re missing the point. He killed the dog because it bit him. And it bit him to protect Hazel. Her uncle was doing something.”
How could she say the rest? Seamus had seen so much suffering, famine and death. How could she tell him that another helpless person he cared about had been harmed? Seamus said that her world was heathen, but in his time, the concept of sexual abuse was not even acknowledged. Child abuse and spousal abuse weren’t either. In a world where slaves could be beaten to death without repercussions, some things were still deemed too scandalous to discuss.
But then, he was a grown man, a former prison inmate. It wasn’t as if he would faint from hearing the truth. Seamus was waiting for her to finish.
“He molested her,” she said, very softly, unsure if the word “molest” had the right meaning in this time. From the way his face fell and his lips parted, she judged that it had the meaning she intended.
He stood silently for a while. “Get her to tell me where he lives.”
“Now stop it. You getting imprisoned for murder isn’t going to do her any good either.”
“Someone has to do something. You’re sure of what she told you?”
“Yes, I had her repeat it, and I asked questions. I don’t know if she remembers telling me, but I’m sure. I asked a few more questions, gentle ones, when I was in her room a few minutes ago, and her reaction confirms it. She’s terrified to go out.”
“I’ll be with her.”
“It’s not that she’s afraid he’ll do something to her in public. It’s just seeing him. Just knowing he’s there, or that he might see her. Imagine if he had done that to you.”
Seamus snorted. “Not bleeding likely. I wouldn’t have allowed it.”
“Oh, so you think when you were ten years old you would become some kind of ninja and fight off a man twice your size? Right.”
“If these ninja people are able to bloody up wicked bastards, then yes.”
Felicia sighed in exasperation. This wasn’t the time to argue that Hazel bore no culpability or that a boy being sexually abused by a grown man was not some kind of blight on the boy’s masculinity.
“Let her stay home,” she said. “She can read a page of the Bible or say a rosary or whatever you like. Just give her a few weeks. I’m sure God will understand and let her off the hook for Mass attendance.”
“Are you coming?” Seamus asked.
“A Latin Mass in St. Louis Cathedral in 1857? I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
Seamus nodded but looked uncertain. She had intentionally left it ambiguous as to whether she wanted to attend church on its own merits. Her grandmother had been a devout Catholic, though her mother and father had not. For her grandmother’s sake, she had been baptized and had her First Communion and Confirmation, but as an adult, she had only attended church for funerals, infant baptisms and weddings. But the chance to see the historic cathedral in all its glory was not to be missed.
“Will Mrs. Washington be home? We can’t leave Hazel home alone,” said Felicia.
“Why not?”
“She’s only eleven.” Then she realized the silliness of her statement. The girl had lived on her own for months. A few hours in the house would not pose any danger.
When they arrived home after Mass, a large trunk waited in the kitchen, covered in an oilcloth. Seamus ripped off the sheet with a flourish and tossed it aside.
“That was on the back steps with a note saying to keep it covered,” said Mrs. Washington. “Now, Professor, tell me this thing isn’t stolen.”
“It’s a gift,” he said.
“From McCullen? The man who had you arrested and who stole your engine design? No, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.” She left the kitchen and Seamus knelt and opened the trunk.
“Oh you beauty,” he murmured to the engine, stroking it. “Look at you. What secrets do you have for me, my sweet little thing?”
“Do you need to have some time alone with it in your laboratory?” Felicia asked. “Sounds like you may need some privacy.”
“Quite right.” He rushed out to the shed, brought in a hand cart and pulled the engine up the stairs amid thumps and curses. At last, Felicia heard the laboratory door bang closed and she heaved a sigh. Finally, the Professor had what he needed.
She missed her own time. It was noisy and dirty and manners had definitely deteriorated over the intervening years, but it was hers. She missed take-out Chinese food, TV, the public library system, electricity. At least there was indoor plumbing in the house. Seamus had created a water heater for the bathroom, and though you had to light it an hour before your bath, the water was hot.
Her grandmother had been born on a farm in Mexico and had seen segregation, the civil rights movement and modern equality, such as it was. What would she think of her granddaughter’s current predicament? And if Felicia was trapped in this time, could she manage? She could neither vote nor own property, have a career or do much of anything besides get married and keep house. She had no idea how to sew or do laundry by hand. Even cooking would be difficult. She couldn’t stoke and keep a fire going in the wood-burning stove. And plucking a chicken? Her chicken had always been born in pieces on Styrofoam trays at the supermarket.
At 11:30, Mrs. Washington started making lunch and Felicia assisted her.
There was a crash from upstairs, then muffled swearing. Mrs. Washington shook her head but did not look up. A few minutes later, Mr. Grey knocked on the kitchen door.
“We have more people calling at the back door than at the front,” said Mrs. Washington. But when she opened the door, she greeted Mr. Grey warmly. “Would you like to stay for lunch?”
“Thank you, but I must decline,” said Mr. Grey. “I came to speak with Mr. Connor and see how he’s coming with the engine.”
“Oh, was that from you?” asked Mrs. Washington, but in a lightly disinterested tone that did not encourage any further discussion of the topic.
There was another sound upstairs, like the crash of breaking glass. Seamus shouted again.
“I’ll go up and speak with him,” said Mr. Grey.
“I’ll be up in a few minutes,” said Felicia.
“I don’t think the Professor is any decent company for a woman right now,” said Mrs. Washington.
“It’s all right, I’m used to it.”
“He said you were a nurse or some such. I bet you hear men swear a blue streak in that line of work.”
“I’ve heard my share,” said Felicia. She may not ever excel at housekeeping, but one career was open to her. She could become a nurse. Her penicillin mold was growing well upstairs in the laboratory, and though she couldn’t make pills from it, she could experiment with ways to treat infections. And if the Civil War was coming, she thought she might be useful as a battlefield nurse. Later, she could find work in a hospital, hopefully in the North. Maybe after the war, she could go to New York, or somewhere where her skin color wouldn’t be such a detriment. She remembered learning about Florence Nightingale and the Crimean War. When was that war? Had it happened yet? She wondered if she could somehow serve with Nightingale’s nurses even though she wasn’t British. Those women were respected and independent and Nightingale formed some sort of formal nursing school, although it was probably in England.
She carried the tray out of the kitchen and was just at the top of the stairs when the grandfather clock finished chiming noon. The door stood ajar and she pushed it open wi
th her foot and found a spot to set the tray.
“Any news?” she asked.
“Oh, plenty,” said Seamus. “It didn’t take nearly as long as I had feared. There have been a few, er, mishaps. Small ones. But I have some good information. I amplified the signal on the mapping device just a little, not because I needed to record the results of sonic amplification as previously,” he said, waving wildly toward the rolled metal sheet with zigzag scratches on its surface. “No. I amplified it a bit, just enough to cause a reaction. Amplifying the zed waves between thirty and forty percent was enough to do it. Once I managed that, it happened. Do you know what I saw?”
“What?”
“Guess.”
“Oh for the love of Pete. Just tell me,” said Felicia. Mr. Grey leaned against the desk with his arms folded.
“You’ll never be so happy. It was the best thing I’ve seen all day. And it was right there, and it was—”
“A shimmer,” interrupted Mr. Grey.
“I was getting to that,” cried Seamus, throwing up his hands. “I was explaining everything. So yes, a shimmer, a door! Anyway, you’ll never believe what is being used in addition to the silver as the catalyst for the peroxide engine.”
“Please don’t make me guess.”
“No, we’d be here all day, because there’s no way anyone would figure it out, not even a lass as clever as you. Well, no one could except for me, but then I have a certain advantage.”
“Okay, Mr. Humble,” said Felicia. But she wasn’t offended. The Professor paced from one end of the table to the other.
“I wouldn’t have thought of it, but for your coming through time. And once I knew that, I was able to figure it out. The catalyst is matter from another universe!” He jabbed a finger into the air.
“What? What do you mean?” Felicia asked.
“Matter from another place is being used as a catalyst. The silver is just there for show. Well, not exactly. The regular engine, the one I created, produces a decent amount of energy, enough to power an apparatus that in turn can puncture one eensy weensy hole in time, to another world, another universe even. I can see how he managed it, but only barely. It’s all very strange. Very strange.
The Time Corps Chronicles (Complete Series) Page 19
