“The stairs are near the front,” I whispered to Drew, anxious to keep moving. As much as I would have loved to explore every nook and cranny of this house where I’d lived in a past life, we had a time constraint. I didn’t know how long Misty could keep Barbara occupied with the car breaking down story, and I didn’t want to test our luck.
We walked to the stairs, trying to be as quiet as possible. I was better at this than Drew. Every time a plank of wood squeaked beneath his feet, I cringed, even though Misty and Barbara were at the end of the driveway and neither of them could hear us. Still, it was nerve-wracking.
I took the lead as we walked up the steps, and I didn’t need to think twice about where the master bedroom was. I just opened the door and walked inside.
But while I knew the layout of the house, that was the only thing about it that had stayed the same. Barely any of the furniture remained from when I lived there in my past life; it was like everything about that existence had disappeared.
I wondered what had happened—if my family took the furniture with them when they moved, if they sold it, or if the new owner got rid of it to make room for her belongings. The house couldn’t have been kept in the family, since I was an only child, and my past self didn’t live long enough to marry and have children.
What had happened to my parents back then? Did they move after the death of their only child to start life fresh, or did they die in this house at an old age, ending the family line forever?
“Is everything okay?” Drew’s concerned voice brought me back to the present.
“Yeah,” I said. “Being here and knowing that this is where I used to live is just a lot to take in.”
“I understand,” he told me. “But we have to find the ring and get out of here. Maybe we can look around at some other point, but now isn’t the time.”
“I know,” I said, and looked around to locate the jewelry box.
It wasn’t hard to find. It sat on top of an antique chest of drawers—I recognized the chest as one that had been there when my past self had lived in the house. It looked freshly painted and renovated, but it was definitely the same one.
“It’s over there,” I said to Drew, pointing at the wooden box that was also a relic from the past.
We walked up to it, and stared at it as though afraid to touch it.
“You can open it,” he told me, watching me intensely.
I looked back at the box, unable to believe that this might hold the ring the two of us had made a promise on all those years ago, in a life we were only beginning to remember. A promise to be with each other forever … a promise that was strong enough to transcend time.
I lifted the lid of the box and there it was, sitting in the center of the ring section. The gold band with a half-moon of garnets along the top, gleaming even in the low-lighted room.
Looking at it sent images flashing through my mind of Drew and I together on the field outside this house, when he presented it to me and told me he ended the engagement with Catherine and it was me he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. How he didn’t care what his family thought, or what they would do to him out of anger. It was worth it for us to be together, because he loved me, and he would never find anyone else he wanted to be with more.
Before either of us could grab the ring, my cell phone lit up. A text from Chelsea.
911 – they’re heading back to the house!
Panic pounded through my chest, and I showed Drew the text.
He grabbed the ring from the jewelry box and shoved it into the front pocket of his jeans. “Keep quiet, and maybe we can get out the back before she sees us,” he whispered.
We tip-toed out of the bedroom in time to hear the front door open. I froze at the top of the steps.
“Thank you so much for your help!” Misty’s voice resonated through the entire house. “I can’t believe it was something so simple!”
“It was no trouble at all.” I could tell from the edge in Barbara’s voice that she was getting annoyed. “Is there something else you need?”
“I’ve got a long drive ahead, and would appreciate using the loo before heading out,” Misty said. “I’m also dying of thirst—do you have any iced tea, perhaps?”
“I’ll go fetch it,” Barbara said, and then directed Misty to the restroom.
“This is our chance,” I whispered to Drew. “We’ll have to leave through the front door.” I couldn’t believe I sounded calm, when I was freaking out inside.
“Let’s go,” he said, not wasting any time before rushing down the stairwell. I followed him, cringing every time my steps were loud enough to be overheard. Luckily, the stairs led straight to the front door.
We burst outside, making sure to shut the door quietly behind us.
Once on the porch, I took a deep breath of fresh air and ran with Drew down the driveway until we reached the car. Chelsea was already there waiting for us.
“I can’t believe you guys made it!” she said, breathless from what I guessed was also her dash to the car. “Did you get the ring?”
“It’s right here.” Drew patted the front pocket of his jeans.
“When they went inside the house, I thought for sure we were going to get caught!” I ran my hands through my hair in an attempt to tame my curls. “I can’t believe we got away with it.”
“What’s going to happen when Barbara realizes her ring is missing?” Chelsea asked.
I hadn’t considered that part, but now that Chelsea brought it up, I ran through the possibilities.
“If we don’t succeed with our plan, she’ll eventually realize it’s gone,” I said with a shrug.
“And if we do succeed with our plan?”
I met her eyes, and tried to sound more confident than I felt. “If we do succeed with our plan, then she won’t notice the ring is gone, because it never would have been hers to begin with.”
“What does that mean?” Chelsea looked confused.
“If everything works out the way we want, I will never have died in the past, so the path the ring took to get to this point will have changed completely,” I explained. “My past self will live a long life, with the ring in her possession, and will probably pass it down through her family so it doesn’t end up with a stranger like it did in this reality.”
Chelsea nodded, although I could tell she was having a hard time digesting this. I could somewhat grasp it because of the books I enjoyed reading, but Chelsea never shared my interest in science-fiction and fantasy.
I didn’t have more time to explain time travel theory to her, because Misty hurried down the driveway and joined us at the car.
“Did you get the ring?” she asked, her eyes wide in hope. “Please tell me you did and I didn’t go through that for nothing.”
“We got it,” I assured her. “Although I thought for sure when the two of you came inside that we were going to get caught.”
“You left through the front door?” Misty asked.
“Yes.” I nodded.
“Good,” she said. “Now, let’s go to the store and get the three of you back to the past.”
CHAPTER 24
Once we got back to Misty’s store, she told her employees they could leave early for the day and turned the sign on the door from “open” to “closed.”
“I never close the shop early, but these are special circumstances,” she explained. “I’ve never tried something like this before, so who knows what could happen!”
That didn’t sound encouraging.
“Don’t look so stressed,” she told me. “If the spell works, it will be simple, because the ring should do most of the work. All you need is Chelsea’s boost of power, and then you and Drew need to focus on your past lives. Since the ring is strongly connected to your past, the energy created between the three of you and the ring should work its magic and propel you back in time!”
“Oh yeah, totally simple,” I said.
The closer we got to doing this, the more I doubted
it would work. Now that we were sitting at a table staring at the ring in the center, it was feeling rather silly.
“If you go into it with that attitude, it’s only going to be harder,” Misty said, her voice soft and understanding. “I know this is a lot to take in, but I imagine everything you’ve learned in the past few months has been that way as well.”
“You’re right,” I told her. “I didn’t believe in past lives until I started remembering my own.”
“It goes to show that anything is possible,” she said. “You just have to believe.”
She sounded like a fairy godmother from a Disney movie, but she did have a point.
“Now, are you ready to start?” she asked.
I wasn’t sure, but I nodded anyway. I would never feel totally ready for something like this. It was one of those things you had to jump into and pray for the best.
“Great!” Misty said.
“If this does work, what will it be like when we get there?” I asked, figuring it would be best to understand everything before venturing forward. I wanted to be as prepared as possible. “Like, before we try anything, should we dress in clothes from the time? I wouldn’t want to get there and have people freak out because they don’t know what jeans are, or why a woman would be wearing something that wasn’t a dress.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Misty said. “If it works, the three of you will be propelled into the bodies of your past selves, so you’ll be wearing what they were wearing on the day you travel back to.”
“Okay.” At least that was one less thing I would have to worry about. “So if we’re in their bodies, we’ll have to trick everyone into believing that we’re our past selves. Won’t they get suspicious?”
Misty didn’t look concerned. “You should have enough memories from your past that this won’t be a problem, and you should recall your memories faster once you arrive. If anyone notices something is off, just say you have a headache and aren’t feeling like yourself. Plus, if this goes as planned, you shouldn’t be there for too long. You’re going back to the day of the party when the carriage accident occurred. All you have to do is stop the accident, and then the three of you will gather around the ring again and do the same thing you’re about to do now to get back home. You should only be in 1815 for a few hours, max.”
When she put it like that, it didn’t sound too bad.
“All right,” I said, even though I wasn’t one hundred percent confident about all this. “I’m ready.”
“You each need to put the thumb of your dominant hand on the ring,” Misty instructed.
We were all righties, so we put our right thumbs on the ring.
“Why our thumbs?” Chelsea asked.
“The thumb has the strongest pulse of all the fingers,” Misty explained. “It’s the most powerful for a ritual like this.”
I supposed that made sense. My thumb was currently on the part of the ring with the garnets on it, and I could feel a pulse coming from it, like it had a life of its own.
Misty lit four purple candles, and the smell of lavender filled the room. “Once I turn the lights off, I want Drew and Lizzie to think about the day of the party when the accident occurred, and for Chelsea to harness the temporary magic she received from the witch in America. All three of you need to focus on putting your energy into the ring, and accepting the energy from it. Are you ready?”
“Yes,” I said with Chelsea and Drew, my voice trembling.
The lights went off, the dim flickers of the candles filling the room. I closed my eyes and focused on the day of the party.
What was I doing that day? I remembered preparing to get ready, but the most important event was Drew giving me the ring when he secretly visited me in my backyard. I was supposed to be dressing for the ball, and his visit made it so I was late to the party, but it was worth it. Because when he gave me the ring and told me he wanted to marry me, it was the happiest moment of my life.
Suddenly my stomach flipped, like it does on roller coasters when you go down the big drop and gravity pulls you so fast that your stomach rises to your throat. I think I screamed, but I couldn’t say for sure, because every sound around me disappeared. For a few seconds it was silent, and it was frightening.
Then birds chirping filled my ears, and cold wind blew across my cheeks. Despite the cold, sunlight warmed my skin, and I took a deep breath of crisp winter air. Once my stomach settled, I opened my eyes, and found that I was looking straight into Drew’s.
Except this wasn’t Drew as he looked in the present. His eyes were the same, but his hair was longer, and his clothes were from two hundred years ago.
This was the Drew from my past.
Meaning the spell had worked, and I was in 1815 England.
CHAPTER 25
“Drew?” I said his name softly, hoping that even though he looked like past-Drew, my Drew was inside there.
“It worked,” he said, his dark eyes lighting up in amazement. “I can’t believe it worked.”
I looked down at my hand, where the garnet ring was displayed on my ring finger. “This was the moment when you asked me to marry you, and I said yes,” I said breathlessly.
“That’s how I remember it,” he said. “Unless you plan on changing your mind?”
“Never!” I said with a laugh.
“Remember, we agreed not to tell anyone we’re engaged until the gossip settles about my no longer being engaged to Catherine,” Drew reminded me. “We don’t want to embarrass her more than necessary, and our engagement would seem quick if I can’t court you properly. You’re engaged to James right now, too. The only reason your father won’t allow you to break the engagement is because he views James as the best possible option for your future. Once everything settles down with Catherine’s family, you can let your parents know that we intend to be married, and they can break your engagement with James so I can court you publicly.”
“Of course,” I agreed. “But we won’t have to worry about anything past tonight, because once we stop the carriage accident we’ll go back home.”
“That’s the plan,” Drew said.
Then I realized that just as Drew was no longer in his twenty-first century clothes, I was no longer in mine, either. Instead, I was wearing a lilac cotton dress, although I couldn’t feel the material on my skin because there were so many layers of clothing between my body and the actual dress. The fabric was stiff, and scratchy. Clearly dryers and dryer sheets had yet to be invented. We were also speaking with British accents, without having to try. It was strange that my voice didn’t sound like me.
“Elizabeth!” someone frantically screamed from the front door of the house.
I turned around to see the baffled face of my mother—not my mom from the present, but the woman I remember being my mother in the past. She wore a light-colored day dress, and her hair was pinned back in a formal way that my present day mom never would have worn. She reached where I was standing with Drew and paused to catch her breath. I put my hand behind my back to hide the ring.
“You failed to mention that Mr. Carmichael would be stopping by this afternoon.” She turned to Drew and smiled. “Good day, Mr. Carmichael. To what do we owe this visit?”
“Miss Davenport lost an earring at the dinner my family hosted earlier this week, and I wanted to return it to her before Lord Givens’ ball this evening,” he said, as though he had planned the excuse from the beginning. Perhaps he had, or maybe his past self had and he remembered the plan.
“How kind of you to stop by yourself,” she replied. “I was tending to business in the back of the house and Mr. Davenport was in the library, so we couldn’t hear you approach. Otherwise we would have greeted you upon your arrival.”
“Please don’t concern yourself about it, Mrs. Davenport,” Drew said. “I’m sure you’re busy with preparations for tonight.”
“Yes, we must start dressing for the ball soon,” my mother said, and I could tell from her anxious tone that she was feelin
g rushed. “We do have some time, though. Would you care to join us in the parlor for tea?”
“I wouldn’t want to trouble you,” Drew said with utmost courtesy. “I only wanted to ensure that Miss Davenport had her earring returned before tonight.”
“I’m sure she appreciates it very much,” my mother said. “Especially since you troubled yourself to deliver it personally. Don’t you, dear?”
“Very much,” I said. “Thank you, Drew … I mean, Mr. Carmichael.”
My mother looked horrified at my slip-up.
We finished our good-byes, and Drew set off on his horse to return to his estate. Once my mother and I got inside the house, she slammed the door and grabbed me by the arm.
“Calling Mr. Carmichael by his Christian name!” she exclaimed, fanning her face as though what I’d said had shocked her that much. “And the two of you hardly know each other! What has gotten into you? I can only hope he doesn’t repeat this mistake to anyone. It could be quite grave …”
“I forgot myself for a moment,” I apologized. “I’ve been looking forward to the ball tonight so much that it made it difficult to sleep last night, and I’m rather tired. Although,” I said, more than willing to change the subject, “Mr. Carmichael did tell me something quite interesting.” I was gradually remembering more about my mother from the past, and one major trait I recalled was that if anything was going to distract her, it was some really juicy gossip.
She looked intrigued. “And what is that?”
“Mr. Carmichael has broken his engagement with the Lady Catherine,” I said, excitement flooding my veins when my mother’s mouth opened in shock. “He says he doesn’t love her, and he suspects her motives for marrying him were based purely on his wealth, opposed to his own person.”
“Heavens!” my mother exclaimed. “Everyone knows her family needs the money, and his the title. They were supposed to be a perfect match. But more importantly—he chose to call on you personally to return your earring and inform you of this news?”
Timeless (Transcend Time, #2) Page 11
