The Cassandra Complex

by Wendy Nikel

  “And when are we going back to, exactly?”

  “April 15, 1914.”

  April 1914… That’s two months before the start of World War I, which is as good a place as any to start righting history’s wrongs. I run my thumb along the edge of the new suitcase Dodge picked out for me and think of the PVD tucked into my bodice. Is there enough information on there to prevent a global conflict? I hope so.

  “All right, then,” I say. “I’m ready.”

  CHAPTER FOUR: April 15, 1914

  “Our first stop,” Dodge announces.

  “What is this place?” I ask. The building before us isn’t far from where the DeLorean Box dumped us in a deserted alley amid clotheslines of dingy undergarments and sharp-eyed rats.

  “A job interview,” Dodge says. “Dr. Wells thought it’d be a good idea for you to support yourself, and this particular position seemed like something you’d enjoy.”

  “Did you two really think this would be something I’d enjoy, or did you find a record somewhere saying this is what I end up doing?”

  “I don’t know what Dr. Wells knows,” he admits, “but I’ve asked him not to tell me anything he finds out about your life here, either. It’s going to be easier on us all if we don’t know. I’ve already worked it out that I’ll always visit 219 years from my own present, so our lives will run parallel. That way, a year from now, we’ll both be a year older. Ten years from now, we’ll both be ten years older, and so on. And I won’t ever know anything about your future.”

  I’m skeptical, but I give him the benefit of the doubt and follow him through the heavy wooden doors.

  “Oliver McIntire,” the man at the front desk says, offering Dodge a handshake. When his eyes meet mine, though, he anxiously reaches for a stack of files to restack, fumbling with them and looking anywhere but at me. It’s kind of cute, the way his freckles stand out even more against his flushed cheeks. He clears his throat. “I’m very glad you’ve come in, Miss Argent.”

  It takes me a moment to realize he’s referring to me. It was Dodge’s idea to use Mum’s surname. Obviously, he must have found me in some historical records under that name, but I don’t want to know, so I don’t ask.

  “Please, call me Cass.” From the look of surprise on the clerk’s face—and the glare of disapproval from Dodge—that’s probably not the most appropriate response for a young lady of this era to give, but no matter.

  “If you don’t mind me asking,” Oliver says, directing his question to Dodge. “Is there any particular reason why your sister needs to take a job? Are you unable to provide for her?”

  I smirk at Dodge, but he shoots me a scathing look that wipes the smile from my face. Right. For a second there, I’d forgotten that I want him to leave. That I need him to leave so I can have some freedom here in the past to pursue my own goals.

  “I’ve recently purchased some land out west,” he says. I wonder if he’s ad-libbing or if he’d thought this all out ahead of time. “I need to ensure everything’s prepared before I send for her—build a proper house, fences, barns… you understand—but I’m not certain how long it will take, and I won’t have funds to send back to her until I start turning over a profit, which will be at least a year.”

  “Ah.” Oliver nods, though I suspect from his surreptitious glances that he’s wondering why I don’t already have a husband and a house of my own to care for; I’m old enough for it, by this era’s norms. He reaches into a desk drawer for a brochure. “Well, at this time, the Fred Harvey Company is particularly looking for serving girls for the California Limited. It’s a great opportunity for young ladies of your age. You’re able to travel and see the country from here all the way to the west coast. We train our workers and pay $17.50 a month, plus room, board, and gratuity. A very generous income for a woman like yourself.”

  “That sounds perfect,” Dodge says, handing me the brochure.

  I wrinkle my nose at the image on the front of girls with their hair pulled back in bows and matching black-and-white uniforms with lacy aprons.

  “Cass,” Dodge leans over to say, “the Harvey Girls are very respectable, and you’ll have a chance to save up some money, see the world, get to know people. I’m sure serving won’t be too difficult.”

  “Right.” I force a smile. It doesn’t sound too hard (how complicated can serving tables be?), but California is precisely the opposite direction from where I need to be. I only have two months before the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, so if I’m going to prevent the first world war—and the decimation of Germany that leads to the second—I need to find the president or the secretary of defense—someone with power and authority to enact change.

  Still… if I can play along long enough to get Dodge off my back, I can sneak away at the first opportunity. I slap the brochure down on the desk between us. “That sounds just dandy.”

  Dodge gives a slight shake of the head, but whether he’s disapproving of my exuberance or my use of the word ‘dandy’ isn’t clear.

  “Excellent!” Oliver says, looking as excited as if he’s discovered the cure for the AI Virus of 2105. He pulls a document from a file and sets it on the table between us with a pen on top. I look to Dodge for an explanation.

  “You have to sign the contract,” he mouths.

  “With a pen?” I mouth back. I’m going to look ridiculous trying to figure out how to use the thing.

  “Sorry, what was that?” Oliver asks, looking up.

  “Nothing,” Dodge and I say together.

  Dodge clears his throat. “What are the contract terms?”

  “The Fred Harvey Company requires a one-year employment contract,” Oliver says, sliding the contract in front of Dodge.

  I grab a corner and pull it toward me.

  Oliver blinks in obvious surprise.

  “A one-year contract?” I prompt him.

  “Ah… yes,” he says, withdrawing his hand. “I must warn you that you’ll forfeit half your base pay if you fail to complete that year.”

  “Fail to complete…?”

  “Sometimes women will meet someone and wish to marry,” he says, blushing furiously. “Bound to happen when you have so many women of marriageable age in a position where they might meet eligible young men.”

  “Oh, don’t worry,” Dodge says. “Cass won’t be getting married this year.”

  “I won’t?” I shoot him a look of challenge. What does he know about my future?

  He bites his lip and shakes his head, nearly imperceptibly.

  I narrow my eyes. I can marry whenever I want, never mind what Dodge’s historical records say.

  “What do you think, Mr. McIntire?” I tease, leaning over the papers toward him. “Do you think the men out west would be interested in a woman like me?”

  “I… That is…”

  “Cass,” Dodge warns. He turns to Oliver. “I can assure you, as her guardian, my sister will not be marrying anyone without my permission. I’ll see to it that she keeps to her contract. Go on, Cass, sign the document.”

  I scowl but press the nub of the pen to the paper. The device is awkward and initially, I press too hard, but finally, I manage to sign my name.

  “There.” I curve the final letters upward with a flourish. “When do I begin?”

  Oliver flips over the brochure and runs a finger along the train schedule. “Ah, you’re in luck. The California Limited will be leaving Chicago tomorrow. You can begin right away.”

  “Great.”

  He tells us where to report the next morning and shakes hands with Oliver. This time, I don’t offer him mine, though I do sneak him a wink, which causes him to blush profusely and reshuffle his papers yet again.

  Dodge’s steps are lighter as we head north, toward a boarding house where we can stay for the night, but I hang back, trying to work out exactly how—on a train speeding westward—I’m going to prevent the Great War. If Archduke Ferdinand is still shot in two months, it’ll be entirely Dodge’s fault.


  ***

  “Lovely to meet you, Cassandra. I’ll be your house mother, Mrs. Wallace.”

  The woman standing before me at the train station looks kind enough, but there’s a steely sharpness in her eye that warns me she’s not to be underestimated. As Dodge explained to me the night before, the Harvey Girls are known for their squeaky-clean reputation; the house mothers must be women who will take no guff.

  “Now why don’t you say goodbye to your brother here, and we can get you a uniform and a sleeping berth and start right away on your training?” she continues cheerily. “The other ladies will be delighted to meet you.”

  I glance at Dodge, who’s standing solidly behind me as if somehow he knows I might up and bolt at the last minute. I’d tried to talk him into letting me walk down to the train station myself—goodness knows I’ve taken the airtrain by myself a million times—but he wouldn’t hear of it. Apparently, it just isn’t done. Or so he said.

  I’m left, then, with no choice but to sneak off the train at its first stop in Joliet, Illinois. I need to head east, not west, and I have no desire to wait until the train is back in Chicago for my escape. Spending even a week carrying plates of food to a bunch of rich folks on a train isn’t how I ought to be spending my time. I’m a time traveler, after all, one with vast amounts of knowledge about these people’s future; there are far more important things I ought to be doing.

  “I suppose this is goodbye,” Dodge says. He pulls me in for an embrace, which I’d have considered uncharacteristically sweet, except that then I realize he’s only done it as an excuse to whisper in my ear: “Please don’t do anything stupid, Cass.”

  I roll my eyes. “Don’t you worry about me. I’ll be perfectly fine.”

  “It’s not you I’m worried about,” he says, pulling away with a teasing smile. “You’ll get out fine. I’m worried what you’ll do to the rest of the world.”

  “No need to worry about that, either. I’m certain this world will be a much better place with me in it.” I ignore the sudden quirk of his brow. “You take care of Dad and Mum. Tell them I love them.”

  “Absolutely.” Dodge hesitates. Before I can ask what’s bothering him, he undoes the strap on his wristwatch and holds it out. “Here. Take this.”

  I take it obediently. “Thanks, I guess?”

  He leans in, pretending to help me adjust the strap. “It isn’t an ordinary watch. It was given to me by the company I work for, made specially for people traveling in time.”

  “Don’t you need it?”

  “I’ve got another. I want you to have this one. That way, other time travelers will be able to recognize you as one of them.”

  “Other time travelers?” I glance around, as if expecting to see them here, now, on this train platform.

  “Sure. People who work for Dr. Wells’s organization—in his time and in mine. We work all up and down the timeline, all from various eras going back hundreds of years from our present. With that watch, anyone who sees you will know you’re one of us. Hopefully… Well, hopefully it’ll help you not feel so alone.”

  “Thanks, Dodge.” I hold up my wrist to admire it. “It means a lot.”

  “Now go,” he says. “Your house mother’s waiting.”

  I glance over my shoulder. Sure enough, Mrs. Wallace is waiting just inside the train car, her arms crossed and her head cocked ever so slightly, watching Dodge and me with unabashed curiosity.

  “See you later,” I call back as I climb the train steps.

  Mrs. Wallace hands me a stack of clothing, fresh-smelling and neatly folded.

  “I know you’re on the young side and that this is probably your first time away from home, but I won’t have any weeping or carrying on from my girls. We must put on a brave face. Harvey Girls aren’t the type to mope or complain, you hear?”

  My gaze flickers back to where Dodge is still waiting, guarding the train car like some sort of watchdog. “I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

  “That’s the spirit. Now, let me show you your sleeping quarters. You’ll be sharing a berth with three other ladies. You’ll have five minutes to unpack and change into your uniform, after which you’ll report to the dining car. We’re short on help, and we’ll need to go over the ground rules before lunch service begins.”

  CHAPTER FIVE: April 16, 1914

  Mrs. Wallace knocks sharply on the sliding door of a narrow berth, pulls it open, and gestures for me to enter. There’s hardly a foot of space for me to do so. The room is tiny, even tinier than my dorm room at tertiary school. Two beds—an upper and a lower—jut out from opposite walls of the compartment. In the center sits a chest of drawers, and at the foot of each bed is a trunk. Three sets of curious eyes stare up at me from the bunks.

  “Ladies, this is Cassandra. She’s our newest Harvey Girl. I expect you will help her settle here and show her to the dining car. We’ll need all four of you out here in five minutes, prompt. Now, hop to it.”

  She slides the door closed behind her, and I find myself facing my new roommates all on my own. I clear my throat, stalling as I try to figure out what to say to these women, whose upbringing and lives up until this point have been so different from my own. They might as well be from another planet.

  “Ah… hello there.”

  One of the girls—a blonde with spiral curls ringing her head—shifts slightly from her position on the bottom bunk and sighs. “Time to relocate our contraband, ladies.”

  All three rise and gather around the fourth bunk, reaching into the bedding. From the pillowcase, mattress, and folds of the blankets, they pull all varieties of items, from paperback romance novels to packs of cigarettes and lipstick tubes, and even a gold ring on a chain. After the girls have collected their treasures, they look to one another and then to me.

  “You have anything to add?” the blonde asks. “Might as well do it now. Alice’s such a snoop, she’s bound to find anything before tomorrow morning anyway.”

  The brunette, who must be Alice, elbows her in the ribs but doesn’t deny the accusation.

  “I’m Fanny, by the way. Fanny Warren. And this is Mary. So? Do you have anything to add or not?”

  “No,” I say, wondering whether the PVD glasses still tucked down my blouse counts as ‘contraband’ in this case. Surely eyeglasses aren’t prohibited. Only the information in them is dangerous. “I don’t have anything.”

  The others exchange looks that clearly show they don’t believe me.

  “Says you. Come on, ladies. We’ll have to stow these behind that loose board beneath the bed again.” Fanny turns to me. “The dust under there is just awful. If you change your mind and decide to place anything in there, be sure to dust off your apron afterward, or you’ll get us all axed. For now, you ought to get dressed; you look like you’ll need every one of those five minutes to wrangle all that hair into its net.”

  ***

  I thought Dodge had kept a close watch on me during our brief time together in the past, but he has nothing on Mrs. Wallace. The house mother, who is also in charge of training the new waitresses, has sharp, beady eyes that don’t stray from me for a second. Sneaking off the train at Joliet proves impossible, for as soon as it comes to a rolling stop, the apron-clad woman is hovering over my shoulder, critiquing the way I fold napkins—a task that was always done by our washing machine back home.

  She doesn’t leave my side throughout the hours of my entire shift, until long past when I’ve lost track of the train’s stops.

  “The woman’s a hawk,” I mutter after Mrs. Wallace catches me trying to open a window in the tiny prep room situated in the back of the wood-paneled dining car where she’s kept me occupied.

  Fanny leans in, balancing her tray out before her. “She also has incredible hearing, so you’d best keep your grousing to yourself.”

  I obediently turn, grab another starched white napkin, and attempt to finagle it into a shape that somewhat resembles Mrs. Wallace’s sample.

  “Don’t worry. I won’t t
ell.” Fanny points to one of the napkins. “You’ve got that one backward.”

  I frown and flip the napkin over. She’s right.

  While my hands are busy, I rub one toe against the other leg, trying to subdue an itch that has been bothering me all day. My required black stockings are painfully uncomfortable and I can’t understand how they simultaneously cling to my legs and keep slipping down. With one hand, I reach beneath the black skirt to scratch it—

  “Miss Argent!”

  I startle so much at the sound of Mrs. Wallace’s voice behind me that the hand-painted drinkware on the table before me rattles.

  “Mr. McIntire assured me that you would be a fine addition to our Harvey Girls,” the house mother says, her frown crumpling her narrow face until it looks like an upright raisin. “In the past, his assessment has always been reliable; I’m sure he’d hate to discover he was remiss in his recommendation. Now, I expect you’ll shape up and put your best foot forward for the remainder of your training so that by the time we arrive back in Chicago, you’ll be a proper Harvey Girl indeed.”

  The implication is clear: I’m on probation.

  “In the meantime,” she continues, “remember: a Harvey girl is efficient and reliable and, above all, respectable.”

  I try to look sufficiently contrite, despite the persistent itchiness of my stockings. How did people live in these things? It’s a crime, plain and simple, that women in this era have to put up with such irritating and inconvenient garments. I ought to do something about that, too, now that I’m here.

  It’s obvious, though, from the look on Mrs. Wallace’s face, that she would not appreciate my theories on how women’s fashion in the early 20th century was harmful—both to the individual’s physical and mental well-being and to society as a whole—nor would she entertain any suggestions about how to improve the Harvey Girl uniforms.

  The house mother stares at me down her long nose, obviously expecting some sort of reply.