A Flight in Time (Thief in Time Series Book 2)

by Cidney Swanson

  “We’re going to go about this crust-making lesson a little differently, I think.”

  “You’re really going to make me do this?”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  What did she have to lose? This was probably the closest she was getting to pastry school.

  Branson crossed to the dry goods pantry and removed several tubs of Spectrum Organic Palm Oil Shortening. “A different tack entirely, I think.”

  Jillian’s brows drew together. “What do you mean?”

  “I shall teach you all the possible ways to ruin piecrust.”

  Jillian smiled softly. “You’re joking.”

  “I never joke about pastry.” Branson was trying very hard to suppress a smile.

  “You want me to learn how to ruin piecrust?”

  “I have a secret agenda.”

  “A secret agenda?”

  He leaned in, whispering conspiratorially, “I’m going to prove to you that a little failure isn’t always a bad thing. Which will inspire you to see other areas of your life differently.”

  Jillian released a small laugh. “You’re not very good at keeping secret agendas hidden.”

  “True.”

  Over the following two hours, Jillian was instructed in the art of ruining a dough through too much water, not enough water, too warm of water, not enough shortening, unsifted flour, too much flour, too much shortening, and, most critically of all, too much handling.

  She was, as it turned out, very good at repeated failure.

  “I’m not sure you’re teaching me the lesson you want me to learn,” she murmured.

  “Oh, you let me be the judge of that,” replied Branson. “Now then,” he continued, “our hands are naturally warm. Warmth is the enemy. We don’t want the shortening to melt into the flour until the whole thing is inside a four-hundred-twenty-five-degree oven.”

  They baked and sampled the crust with not enough shortening (tough), too warm of water (tougher), and too much handling (toughest of all—designated by Branson to be “perfectly cardboard, in fact”).

  By seven o’clock that night, when Jillian’s friends texted to say they’d be over in an hour, Jillian was an expert at ruining piecrust. But she was also itching to do it right one time. Her final attempt was a thing of beauty, resulting in a crust nothing short of stupendous.

  “Oh,” sighed Jillian, nibbling a corner.

  “Mmm-hmm,” agreed Branson. “So tell me what we learned today.”

  Jillian couldn’t refrain from a tiny rolling of her eyes. “That failure can be instructive.”

  “I’m sorry, can I hear that again?” Branson cupped one ear, leaning her direction.

  She snorted in laughter and flicked flour at him.

  “Hmm. I suppose you’ve learned your lesson. So tell me all about this cooking school you’re not flying to in a month.”

  And Jillian, properly primed by the perfect piecrust melting in her mouth, did just that, including the part where it had to be Italy because American programs at the moment were all emphasizing gluten-free alternatives to traditional baking, and what she wanted, at least for her foundation, was traditional baking. And when she’d finished, she said, “I guess I’m going to have to figure a way to get myself on a plane after all.”

  To which Branson answered, “I guess you are.”

  A tiny spark of hope reignited inside her. “I’ve still got the return flight back to SFO in four days. . . .”

  “That’s the Jillian Applegate I know.”

  Now all she had to do was tell everyone else in her life she was dropping out of her parents’ alma mater in favor of a professional school.

  5

  · EVERETT ·

  Quantico, Virginia, 1903

  In many ways Everett Randolph, now almost nineteen, was sorry for the break with his father. Rupture had never formed a part of his youthful plans. The summer of his fourteenth year, while his friends engaged in the pursuits of riding, boating, and sampling the cook’s brandy supply, Everett studied grammar (English, Greek, and Latin), pored through Euclid, ciphered, and memorized the principle events of the Revolutionary War so as to pass his high school examinations two years ahead of his fellows. In a private school full of ambitious sons of the titans of industry, Everett stood out as the most ambitious. His tutors were fooled by this rigorous application into thinking he would grace Yale or Harvard as a fifteen-year-old. However, a college education formed no part of Everett’s aspirations. He simply wanted to be done with school so that he could join his father and uncle in the adult world of manufacturing and commerce.

  The fall of his fifteenth year, much to the dismay of his personal tutor, Everett had done just that. His father placed him as an assistant to the company’s telegrapher, where he transcribed messages from gibberish to plain English and then delivered said messages. After a month of work as a glorified errand boy, he began to sulk, but he would not complain, lest his father think him a man of no spine. After two months, he found the job took only two or three of his ten hours in the office and began (after applying to his former tutor for advice) a lengthy assault upon various engineering texts.

  The Railroad and Engineering Journal formed a regular part of his diet and eventually opened the rift between Everett’s ambitions and those his father thought proper to his son and heir. It began with a publication by Octave Chanute (under the auspices of the R & E Journal) entitled “Aerial Navigation.” What boy of his era could fail to sit up straighter when confronted with the promise that man would one day travel by air as well as by road, rail, and water? Unfortunately the Victorian-age holdovers of the era (such as Everett’s father) treated such speculations as the rantings of lunatics and fools. His father, after allowing Everett to entertain the family over dinner with the claims made by Octave Chanute in “Aerial Navigation,” put his foot down the next time Everett tried to introduce the topic. And the next time. And the next next time. It became, in short order, a forbidden topic and, as frequently happens, all the more of interest for having been forbidden.

  Everett read everything he could get his hands on, including Chanute’s more lengthy “Progress in Flying Machines.” He attended lectures during his Saturday half days off. He even feigned sickness one weekend so as to travel to Washington, DC, to inquire after employment with Mr. Samuel P. Langley, who, to Everett’s great embarrassment, would not see him.

  “Consider yourself fortunate,” said one of Langley’s supernumerary employees. “The man’s a tyrant. He’ll allow no one but himself a full view of all we do here and is given to considering all ideas produced here as his ideas, without regard to who first had the thought.”

  Everett, already mortified at being turned away sight unseen, had nodded and returned home, complaining to Jennings of the unfairness of life toward young men in general and himself in particular. Jennings nodded and kept his own thoughts on the subject to himself, murmuring, yes, sir and quite, sir at appropriate intervals.

  Having become a more and more excellent transcriber of the garbled thoughts of others through his work as telegrapher’s assistant, Everett advanced in his next year toward writing letters of business for his father; everyone remarked on his skill as a writer. He began to think perhaps he might gain admission to the sacred circle of aeronauts and aviators by publishing accounts of their progress. His weekend “illnesses” rose to one or two a quarter, sending him up and down the Eastern Seaboard in search of balloonists and gliders, but as no one seemed interested in paying him for his (rather good, he thought) articles, he began once more to grow despondent, afraid he would never escape the drudgery of work as an office lackey in his father’s employ.

  Sadly, by the time his father proposed setting him up as second only to his uncle in the new Pittsburgh plant, it was too late. Everett was no longer interested in his father’s business. A visionary like himself could see the age of the buggy, and even that of the automobile, would come to an end once man could travel by air. And so, between the green turtle so
up and the salmon meunière, the rupture begun with Everett’s reading of “Aerial Navigation” was made complete, and the young man found himself in the blissful state of having nowhere to live, nowhere to work, and nowhere to go that he did not wish to go.

  Unfortunately, it had only taken five months for him to exhaust the funds he’d assumed would last two years or more. He could cipher well enough, but he had underestimated the sheer number of things necessary to be purchased on a repeating basis for a young man’s existence. He tried his hand at anything that paid, and in under a year had found a sufficiency of odd jobs to keep himself in shoe leather and two solid meals a day, most days. He sold newspapers to those who did not appreciate the luxury of reading for pleasure and education. He sold candy to those who did not know what it was to go to sleep hungry. He even sold surplus vegetables at the kitchen doors of establishments with names like The Nag’s Head, The Mayflower-on-Potomac, The Rose and Crown. He swept porches, sharpened knives, and erected heavy canvas tents for gentlemen journalists who wished to have a good laugh at Mr. Langley’s latest failure to fly a heavier-than-air contraption over the Potomac. Everett could not approve of the attitude of these journalists, but he was in no position to lecture them.

  A year had passed and a second year begun since Everett had left the house of his forebears. At this time, he was often hungry and less tidily dressed than he might have liked, and he began to wonder if he’d made the right decision. In spite of Mr. Octave Chanute’s continuing enthusiasm, Everett saw no evidence of progress in the manufacture of aeroplanes. Now a bit dispirited, he nonetheless continued to educate himself as an amateur engineer. And then, just as he was beginning to doubt man would fly in his lifetime, Everett heard rumors circulating that Samuel Langley was ready to attempt manned flight again.

  From mid-July, 1903, through the end of the month and into the next, Everett held his breath waiting to see if Langley’s steersman, Mr. Charles Manly, would become the first man to soar using powered propulsion. Meals became less-than-daily affairs during this extended period, when gainful employment was made challenging by Everett’s wish to be always in sight of the Potomac where Langley would make his demonstration.

  Finally, on August 7, Langley launched a one-quarter model of his Great Aerodrome, which soared some thousand feet before crashing into the river. It had not, in the end, been manned, and it had not flown for long, but Everett’s fate was sealed. He was in love as only a young man could be in love: flight had wooed and won him, and there could be no return to his father’s factories.

  6

  · JILLIAN ·

  Montecito, the Present

  Jillian spent the time after Branson’s piecrust lesson trying to figure out how she was going to break the news about dropping out of college to DaVinci, Halley, and Edmund. She’d decided to start with them as a sort of trial run before telling her parents, figuring her friends would make a more sympathetic audience. But the longer she considered telling her friends, the more she realized this, too, was going to be hard.

  It wasn’t so much that she feared their disapproval, but she knew Edmund, who devoted every free hour to independent study, would’ve traded a kidney to enter American higher education. His lack of legal status made this virtually impossible. The one time Jillian had hinted she could finance some fake IDs, Halley had rejected the offer out of hand.

  And then there was DaVinci. How was Jillian supposed to justify giving up her “free ride” when DaVinci had to pay for college with no assistance from her starving artist parents? Jillian knew DaVinci would shake her strawberry-blonde curls and say she was crazy giving up an education she didn’t have to pay a cent for. DaVinci would judge her for it. It would be middle school all over again. . . .

  No. No. It wouldn’t be like that. It might be very awkward, but it wouldn’t be middle school all over again. None of them judged her (or mocked her or hated her) for her wealth. They’d stuck with her through it all, proving again and again that they loved her, that the money didn’t matter.

  But still . . . it was going to be hard to tell them.

  It was ten p.m. now. Jillian had been with her friends for an hour and a half already, and she was still waiting for the perfect moment to make the announcement. Or the perfect way to say it. Or simply a break in DaVinci’s endless supply of amusing narratives of life at UCSB. But now, as the group snuck onto the estate of Jules Khan, Jillian was beginning to fear she would miss the opportunity to announce her news—at least for tonight.

  Halley punched in the gate key code she’d gained access to as Khan’s house sitter prior to his accidental death over a year ago. The place looked as empty as ever. More than a little spooky, thought Jillian as the palm branches brushed together in the breeze. The group hadn’t visited the basement since August, but according to DaVinci, who had to drive past Khan’s estate for school almost daily, no one was ever to be seen driving in or out. DaVinci had also heard through Branson, who heard it through the Applegate’s pool servicewoman, that Khan’s pool service had been discontinued in September due to nonpayment.

  Jillian glanced over to the pool. The algae-green color of the water, visible even at night thanks to motion detector lighting, testified to the truth of the matter. As far as DaVinci had been able to find out, however, no one knew the truth yet: that Jules Khan was never coming back to his estate.

  As Halley unlocked the front door of the main house, DaVinci whispered, “I’m so excited! I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed our little Fly-by-Night Club!”

  Jillian felt her mouth curving upward. DaVinci always complained the loudest when it came to the physical discomforts of their journeys, but it was quite possible she enjoyed the trips the most, too. Or maybe she just loved having her childhood friends back in town. Although she could be rough around the edges, Jillian knew DaVinci was a complete marshmallow when it came to her friends.

  The group had traveled together three times so far. In June, they’d spent twenty-five and a half minutes viewing the Exhibition of the Impressionists in Paris, 1874, which had been DaVinci’s choice. This was followed by Halley’s choice, a July visit to 1863 to hear Lincoln deliver the Gettysburg Address. Jillian took the longest to choose a destination, wanting to conduct thorough research first. At thirty-seven minutes in length, her chosen trip had been the longest. Everyone agreed it was the most delicious, too; they’d spent time with Julia Child in Paris, 1951. Jillian had apologized for choosing Paris when they’d already been there, earning an eye roll from DaVinci.

  Jillian watched as Halley slipped a key into the new lock they’d installed on the basement door in case anyone should come poking around. The four of them agreed the machine should be kept secret. They’d even discussed moving it to Jillian’s where it might fit in some unused room of the West wing. But the removal of so large a device posed its own problems and dangers.

  As soon as they were inside, DaVinci asked the same question she asked each time the group traveled.

  “Remind me about the part where we come back safely, not all dead and mummified?” DaVinci twisted one of her red-gold curls around a finger—a sure sign she was anxious.

  Jillian gave the same answer she always gave.

  “Space–time heals the rift in time by yanking us back here, where we belong. The machine focuses space–time, providing the energy for a nearly instantaneous return. We would only end up as mummies if we didn’t have the machine and had to travel through real time to get back.”

  “Like Khan,” said DaVinci, her large green eyes blinking soberly. Then she laughed and clapped her hands together. “You are so predictable! You tell me the same exact thing every time. I have missed your predictable self so much!”

  Jillian, feeling her face flush, looked down and became suddenly obsessed with wiping her shoes clean on the mat just inside the basement. She hated that she was predictable.

  “During my time in Los Angeles, I have missed both your lovely selves,” said peacemaking Edmund, smil
ing at DaVinci and Jillian.

  Jillian forced herself to smile back. It was just like Edmund to notice when someone in the room was embarrassed. Jillian suspected his overdeveloped ability to read body language stood in reverse proportion to his ability to understand twenty-first-century American English.

  “Hey, sorry,” said DaVinci, sidling up and bumping Jillian at the hip. “I’m predictable too, you know. I ask the mummy question every time.”

  Jillian hugged her back. But honestly, DaVinci was about as predictable as the path of a tornado. She was spontaneous, irreverent, and occasionally rude—all the things Applegates weren’t.

  Next time DaVinci asked the question, Jillian would give a more spontaneous answer. We’re fine as long as no one shuts off the power. Or messes with the first law of temporal inertia. No. DaVinci wouldn’t catch she was joking about the law, unless she explained it. Jillian knew the laws of space–time inside out and backward.

  Space–time was even more predictable than she was, always insisting on healing whatever “wounds” were dealt to it by time travelers. Travel back in time, and space–time would yank you home to “heal” itself. And the farther back you tried to go, the less time you had to visit—the faster space–time was to respond, sending you home where you belonged. Jillian kept a chart of the times you could spend in any given past.

  Ugh! She was planning her future answer to DaVinci. A planned response was not spontaneous. It was hopeless; she was predictable. Although . . .

  Dropping out of college was nothing any of her friends would have predicted. There. She was bold and unpredictable. Maybe this was her moment to speak. She took a deep breath, but before she could gather her thoughts, DaVinci was demanding to know where they were headed.

  “Well, Edmund? Tell us the time and place you’re choosing, already! Enough with all the secrecy! I can see those overstuffed garment bags you’re carrying. What era are the costumes for?”

  Halley’s job in Los Angeles at the costume shop of Oscar winner Ethyl Meier gave them access to pretty much anything they might need for time travel. Their travels had begun after Jillian and DaVinci had completed their freshman years in college and, more significantly, after Jillian had spent ten months obsessing over every note and file Khan had left behind. No one, she’d insisted, was traveling anywhere until they knew everything they could about the safe use of the machine. And although DaVinci had been quick to point out Halley had already used the device without harm, DaVinci was also grateful Jillian was bringing every ounce of her “obsessively science-y brain” to bear on the safety issues, right down to mundane details, like was Khan’s electricity being paid? The wrong answer there, of course, meant DaVinci’s mummification fears coming true.