A Sword in Time
Page 1
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
No part of this work may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher.
Published by Kindle Press, Seattle, 2017
Amazon, the Amazon logo, Kindle Scout, and Kindle Press are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
Also by Cidney Swanson
The Ripple Series
Rippler
Chameleon
Unfurl
Visible
Immutable
Knavery
Perilous
The Saving Mars Series
Saving Mars
Defying Mars
Losing Mars
Mars Burning
Striking Mars
Mars Rising
The Thief in Time Series
A Thief in Time
A Flight in Time
A Sword in Time
Other Books
Siren Spell
For Kimberley,
who makes painting look effortless,
even when it’s watercolor.
Contents
Start Reading
A little Neglect…
The Present
1
2
3
Six Months Earlier
4
The Present
5
6
Five Months Earlier
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Three Months Earlier
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The Present
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One Month Earlier
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The Present
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Acknowledgments
SNEAK PEAK INSIDE THE NEXT THIEF IN TIME BOOK
TO BE CONTINUED IN BOOK FOUR
Summary: DaVinci has a job to do: travel back in time to save her house from demolition, which isn’t a problem until she realizes that in doing so, she’s ruined everything else in her life. Quintus has his own mission: deliver a letter from Caesar to Pompey. He’ll need a time machine, too. But when he and DaVinci accidentally travel together to ancient Rome, they’ll both need swords, daggers, benches, and—oh yeah—a not-broken time machine to get out of there alive.
A little Neglect may breed great Mischief; for want of a Nail the Shoe was lost; for want of a Shoe the Horse was lost; and for want of a Horse the Rider was lost, being overtaken and slain by the Enemy, all for want of Care about a Horse-shoe Nail.
—Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanac, 1758
The Present
July
1
• DAVINCI •
California, July
The moment the Caterpillar’s jawlike bucket bit into the roof, DaVinci knew it had been a mistake to come watch the demolition of her childhood home. The flat roof, which had been a star-watching platform, plein air studio, and refuge for six siblings needing alone time, crackled and gave way, exposing the abandoned bedrooms below: bare, skeletal. DaVinci swallowed. Shuddered, as if it were her bones giving way, her skeleton snapping, exposed, a carcass for scavengers.
This was her home. More and more in the past two years, home had become all she had. Well, home and art. Her best friends were far-flung—Jillian to Florida and Halley to the set of whatever movie she happened to be working on at the time. And besides having left her behind in Montecito, her best friends had each found true love.
Like that was fair.
Not only that, Halley had married Edmund, and DaVinci suspected Everett was dying for Jillian to say she was ready. They behaved like an old married couple already. DaVinci’s mouth twitched into a sad smile. She was happy for her friends. Of course she was happy. But with all the together happening around her, a girl couldn’t help feeling . . . well, lonely at times.
Of course, as Halley and Jillian frequently reminded her, she had siblings. A plethora of them. But Chagall and Toulouse had moved out last year, and her brother Yoshida was probably going to move in with Ana soon. As for Klee and Kahlo, well, the twins already lived in their own private world even though they still shared her bedroom.
Or rather, had shared it before the family had moved out of their home three days ago.
DaVinci shuddered as the Caterpillar removed another wall. Her home had been the only thing she’d had left, the one thing that kept her feeling like she belonged, even if the belonging was to a place and not a someone. She fit here, even more than in her studio space at UCSB.
“Home,” she whispered into the clenched fists pressed to her mouth.
The ramshackle hippie dwelling had perched on Montecito’s East Mountain Drive for half a century—two and a half times longer than DaVinci had been alive. It had not been constructed to code and shook like Jell-O during tremors, rendering it completely uninsurable, which hadn’t seemed like a problem—until it was.
Neighbors had called it an aqua-blue eyesore, and DaVinci herself had called it ugly, but everything about this shabby, crooked building grounded her, reminded her who she was, kept her anchored. She’d always known that so long as her house stood, there would be a place where she belonged.
The bucket lifted again and swung left, gently biting into the corner nearest the road. Into her older brother Yoshida’s bedroom. Yoshi, like DaVinci’s parents, hadn’t wanted to watch the demolition.
It was somebody else’s house now, somebody else’s problem, her parents had said, shrugging.
Klee and Kahlo were away at art camp, but they wouldn’t have come to watch, DaVinci was sure of it.
Don’t go, Yoshi had said.
She should have listened. She shouldn’t have come. She should have stayed “home,” in the sterile three-bedroom condo her parents had bought in Goleta with money from the sale of their land, still valuable without a house.
She shouldn’t be here. She was going to cry in front of everyone. Blinking rapidly, she took a slow breath. Reminded herself why she was here. Not to freak out, but to psych herself up to make things right again—to rewind the clock and rescue her home.
For a girl with access to a time machine, this was more than merely wishful thinking.
The bucket descended. Took another bite. Flayed and exposed another bedroom.
DaVinci swiped at her eyes, hands bunched into fists inside the sleeves of her UCSB sweatshirt from freshman year. She needed to gather courage for the next step. Until now, she’d been too afraid to use the time machine by herself. She was still afraid. Terrified! But there were no
other options—not if she wanted her home back.
She had to be brave. Braver than she’d been that day in fifth grade when she’d punched sturdy Charlie Esposito for making fun of Halley’s clothes. Braver than she’d been last year when she’d exhibited paintings one of her professors had called “infantile.”
She would be brave.
Brave like Princess Leia facing the loss of her son, her husband, her brother. DaVinci wasn’t going to find that kind of brave by running away from the demolition. She needed to watch this: No looking away.
She fixed her gaze on the metal monster. The excavator’s movement was disturbingly graceful as the bucket nudged the walls. No. Graceful wasn’t the word she wanted. The Caterpillar was . . . feline. It was a cat toying with a mouse; it could have destroyed everything with one mighty swing of its jointed arm. As far as DaVinci could tell, the Caterpillar operator only refrained to keep flying debris to a minimum.
She had to stop this. Reverse what had happened. Her house was coming down because of nothing more than a slow drip, drip, drip under the floors. Because of hidden rot eating away at the underpinnings of their aqua-blue eyesore—their castle, their home. Well, that and the fact that they’d had no insurance.
For the want of a nail the shoe was lost,
For the want of a shoe the horse was lost,
For the want of a horse the rider was lost,
For the want of a rider the battle was lost,
For the want of a battle the kingdom was lost,
And all for the want of a horse-shoe nail.
The nursery rhyme lines had seared themselves into DaVinci’s brain these past weeks since their home had been condemned and then sold.
She glanced around at the neighbors who’d gathered to watch. Some she’d known from the time she could walk. Others she barely knew—the newer, wealthier neighbors who’d bought up properties like her family’s, tearing down all but a few walls for a “Montecito remodel,” doubtless costing millions.
One of these approached her now.
“It’s exciting, huh? And a little scary!” The woman laughed and held out her hand. “I’m Barb. I guess we’re neighbors?”
When DaVinci didn’t answer—she couldn’t—the woman added, “I was told you’re part of the owner’s family?”
“Previous owner,” DaVinci managed to choke out, her throat swelling. “We sold.”
“Oh,” replied Barb.
Just Oh because, really, what else was there to say?
It didn’t matter. DaVinci couldn’t speak anyway. Her throat was closing. She turned away from Barb, away from the scene of destruction. She didn’t want to be here. This was no place to find courage.
Cru-unch!
There went the kitchen. Gone. DaVinci choked on a sob. Swiped at brimming eyes. She slunk past her neighbors in silence, like some wounded animal in retreat. Because her own driveway was full of demolition equipment, she’d parked her borrowed car in front of the Van Sants’ house. She fished for her keys and slid into the car. From inside, she felt the ground shudder. Was that the final collapse? Her chest tightened. It was so unfair. So wrong. She started the car.
This was no place to find courage, but it was a heck of a place to harden your resolve.
2
• DAVINCI •
California, July
Done with from her attempt to “find courage,” DaVinci was now bent over a credit card wrapped in Princess Leia duct tape. She was trying, unsuccessfully, to remove the tape. Already, she’d torn a nail, and her fingers were gummy with residue. Her parents had given her the card two and a half years ago for emergencies, and she’d promptly wrapped it in tape to make it hard to use. That part was working well.
As for why she’d chosen Princess Leia duct tape and not basic gray duct tape, that was simple. Potential credit card charges had to make it through a filter: What Would Leia Do? Until today, the card had never been used. The Leia filter was awesome like that.
As DaVinci continued to pick at the tape, she stared at Princess Leia. Blaster gripped and ready, iconic white hood raised, it was a classic image. Today as always, DaVinci tried to match that gaze, but what chance did she have, really? She was always the first to break eye contact.
Truth was, she was making zero headway trying to peel the tape off. So what would Leia do in this situation? Well, for starters, Leia wouldn’t keep trying the same useless tactic, expecting a new result.
Maybe she could soften the adhesive somehow. If she’d been home, she would have grabbed the bottle of Goo Gone. But she wasn’t at home. She hated calling the new condo home. It wasn’t. For this reason, as well as for her need of a time machine, DaVinci was staying at Jillian’s. To be precise, she was staying in the Martian Chronicles suite in the west wing of her best friend’s estate. Jillian was off finishing her degree in Florida, having moved there to be close to her swoony boyfriend from 1903, Everett Randolph IV, who was studying engineering physics (and, secretly, time travel) under Dr. Littlewood.
Luckily, DaVinci had a standing invitation to stay at the Applegates’ even when Jillian wasn’t around. Whenever DaVinci stayed, Jillian’s mom insisted on putting her in the Martian Chronicles suite: “Right in here, dear, with your lovely performance art sculpture.”
The “sculpture” was not, in fact, a sculpture. Nor had it been made by DaVinci. Rather, it was an advanced piece of scientific equipment made by Jules Khan, deceased, using designs he’d stolen from Dr. Littlewood. It was a singularity device capable of focusing space–time, although DaVinci simply called it “the scary time machine.” Today, however, it was the piece of equipment that was going to help DaVinci fix everything. Help her get her ugly blue house back, assuming she could get the duct tape off her credit card. She needed the card to get a cash advance in the amount of $600 to pay a plumber when she traveled back in time.
Taking a short break from duct tape peeling, DaVinci gave the time machine the side-eye. She never slept great in this room, worried the machine would zap her into some other time and place against her will and then proceed to either duplicate her or mummify her. She’d seen these things happen before. Both Jillian’s boyfriend and Halley’s had been duplicated by space–time as part of some weird effect whereby space–time kept history rolling. If you yanked something forward in time, an original version remained behind. It was space–time’s way of preserving temporal continuity. The temporal law of mass-energy conservation, Jillian called it. What it meant was that there were two Edmunds and two Everetts, although only the ones who’d been dragged into the twenty-first century were aware of the existence of duplicate selves. And of course, the originals were long dead by now.
If the duplicating was creepy, the mummifying was even worse. The way Halley and Jillian had explained it, whether the time machine was turned on or not, space–time yanked time travelers who didn’t belong in the past back home again after a short delay. But if the machine was turned off by accident before a traveler returned, the machine couldn’t provide temporal focus for the return journey, which would no longer be swift for the traveler. A traveler returning from, say, the sixteenth century, would journey through space–time for five hundred years from their perspective, even though it would appear to take only a minute from the perspective of those in the present. Unfortunately, during the longer trip, travelers would first asphyxiate and then eventually . . . mummify.
Of course, Jillian and Halley both insisted none of those things would happen to DaVinci just by sleeping in the same room with the machine.
But still. She was keeping her eye on that thing.
She turned the credit card over in her hands, frowning at it. She had to get the tape off to get her cash, but peeling the tape still wasn’t working, and she had no Goo Gone. What would Leia do? Drive to the store. Or, duh, Leia would ask the internet for some help. Feeling vaguely embarrassed she hadn’t already tried this, DaVinci Googled removing duct tape and read that hot water—really hot water—should softe
n the glue. She crossed to the bathroom.
DaVinci let the water run until it was scalding and then started soaking the card. Ten minutes later, the Princess Leia duct tape was soft enough to peel off. With this success, it was time to bring the proverbial horse-shoe nail to the proverbial horse. It was time to save her kingdom, and DaVinci was ready for battle. Or at any rate, ready for a trip to the bank.
3
• DAVINCI •
California, July
Twenty minutes later, DaVinci strode away from the Coast Village Road Union Bank with $600 in her bag. It had been ridiculously easy to get the cash advance. Scary easy. First chance she got, she was wrapping the card in duct tape again. Double layers.
The teller had asked how she wanted the cash, to which DaVinci had replied she needed bills marked 2016 or earlier. When the clerk gave her an odd look, DaVinci floundered for an explanation that didn’t involve time travel and ended up murmuring something about a film project set in 2016, but by then her stomach had tied itself into a macramé project. Her knotted gut was insisting the teller knew what DaVinci was planning and had already pushed a hidden button that would bring the National Guard in to arrest her for operating a time machine without a license.
Her stomach still twisting, DaVinci drove back up the hill to Jillian’s to use the time machine. But by the time she walked back into the Martian Chronicles suite, she was more doubt-ridden than her Grandmother Shaughnessy’s favorite apostle.
She made a mental note to ask the doubting Saint Thomas to put in a good word for her impending journey.
The doubt was rational—a sort of instinct to avoid the untried and potentially deadly—because, while her BFFs Halley and Jillian were expert time machine operators, DaVinci had never operated it before. Fortunately, one year ago, Jillian had created an operations checklist to make sure every journey was accomplished in total safety, according to set rules. Which was so Jillian.