The Time Travel Chronicles

by Peralta, Samuel

  I know why he wanted Delia along. Angelo knows our fields of research make his little blonde lamb my inevitable research partner, but he’s not sure she can handle the big bad wolf. Maybe he realizes the lamb is attracted to me. I’ve known it since the first time I saw her a few years back, fourteen and not even out of Fundamentals. Even that goofy kid who follows her everywhere—Richard, Robert, something like that—knows it. He glares at me like he fantasizes about killing me off so Katherine will finally notice him.

  "So, you were at Jemima’s so-called resurrection?" Katherine’s voice is a little shaky, and she steals a glance at me from the corner of her eye. It’s the first time she’s had the nerve to ask a direct question.

  "Well, not at the resurrection itself. Just at Jemima’s sermon the following Sunday. I'm sure the resurrection would have been more fun to watch, since it took place in her bed..." I wag my eyebrows suggestively.

  As I suspected, innuendo is even more effective at bringing on her blush, but the sly grin that follows close behind is a surprise. “You weren’t supposed to be married back when you met her in 1776. Why didn’t you arrange an invitation to her chamber?"

  "Um…because that would have blown my cover as an aspiring celibate.”

  "It’s your third trip to this region. If that cover’s not already blown, you must be slipping.”

  Her comment almost causes me to miss a step. I’d classed her as pretty, but vapid. She apparently catches my near-stumble, because a tiny little smile sneaks onto her lips.

  We trudge along for another ten minutes or so. Katherine picks up the pace when she spots Judge Potter’s residence, known locally as The Abbey, up ahead. I’m not sure if the family calls it that or not. The villagers seem to be using the term ironically, possibly mocking Judge Potter for taking Jemima in and building a separate wing for her to hold services.

  “Don’t get your hopes up,” I caution Katherine. “It’s farther than it looks."

  She sighs and slows back down. The hike up North Road is less than two kilometers total, but between the dark, heavy clothes of this era and today’s unnaturally thick and humid air, it’s not a pleasant walk. I set a stable point on my last visit, just outside the barn, and we could probably have jumped in without anyone noticing. But the Potter family would have found it odd if visitors popped in out of nowhere, looking fresh and unruffled. Better for one of the field hands to spot us coming up the road.

  Instead, we jumped in near a tavern and booked rooms at the inn in Little Rest. That village will morph into Kingston in a few decades, then South Kingston, with two or three other mergers and name changes along the way until the whole area is gobbled up into the Greater Boston district of the EC in the 2200s.

  Katherine sniffs the air. “How can they not tell that’s smoke?”

  I wish she’d go back to being too shy to ask questions. “It’s only a faint trace. Could you pick it out, if you didn’t know?”

  By this time tomorrow, the sky will be nearly black. The residents of Little Rest are already edgy from the strange weather, but tomorrow it will tip to full-fledged panic. They have no way of knowing the darkened sky is due to low-lying clouds combined with smoke from a massive forest fire in an uninhabited region of Ontario. Scientists won’t figure it out for over two centuries. In this era, people simply flail about and search for some way to appease their gods.

  Their reactions don’t interest me, although I’m a little curious about what Jemima thinks. Does she really believe in prophecy? Or is she the clever con artist her enemies depict?

  The girl’s voice breaks into my thoughts. Dear God, she’s actually reciting the poem.

  “'Twas on a May-day of the far old year

  Seventeen hundred eighty, that there fell

  Over the bloom and sweet life of the Spring

  Over the fresh earth and the heaven of noon,

  A horror of great darkness, like the night

  In day of which the Norland sagas tell,

  The Twilight of the Gods.”

  Katherine grins when she reaches the end of the stanza. “And we get to see it! To be here right in the middle of it, when people are rushing about worried that it’s the end of the world. Even Whittier didn’t have that advantage. He had to write his poem based on someone else’s account.”

  She ignores my eye-roll and skips ahead a few steps, then turns back to face me. “Laugh all you want. It’s my first apocalypse, Saul Rand. And yes, I know being excited is the hallmark of a time travel virgin, but I’d rather be young and eager than a jaded old man.”

  When I don’t respond, she arches an eyebrow and says, “What? Hast the cat thy tongue?”

  Truth be told, I’m pissed off at the old man remark, but I’m certainly not going to admit that. “No. I’m still back on the bit about you being a virgin.”

  Her blush comes rushing back.

  And that means I win.

  ∞

  The servant, a middle-aged black man, slides the silver tray onto the low table in front of us. The two glasses are filled with a pale, cloudy liquid. “The Friend begs thy pardon, John Franklin, and that of thy wife. Susannah is still restless and the Friend does not wish to leave her side. She hopes to speak with thee soon.”

  “Thank you, Caesar.”

  We’ve been waiting here for an hour already. I have no doubt the delay is connected more to Jemima’s sense of self-importance than to Susannah’s illness.

  Once we’re alone, Katherine whispers, “He’s very direct, even for a Quaker slave. He used your name—well, your cover name—without any sort of title. The same for Potter’s daughter, Susannah. And wasn’t Caesar one of the names on the manumission documents?”

  “Could be.”

  “If he’s free, why is he still here?”

  I shrug. “Maybe he didn’t have anywhere to go.”

  A brief silence and then she speaks up again. “Susannah, the daughter who dies tomorrow. What’s wrong with her?”

  “Typhoid, most likely.”

  I sincerely hope that guess is right, otherwise the wide-spectrum antibiotic I’ve brought with me won’t do much good. Even then, there’s a chance that “The Friend” will resist, or do something else to botch this test as badly as she botched predicting when the sky would go dark. It’s looking more and more like this jump will be a colossal waste of effort.

  Katherine is looking at me oddly now. “Is something wrong?”

  “No. Why?”

  “You’re clenching your jaw.” She glances around, and then leans closer, lowering her voice. “The way you did at the Objectivist Club, when you were angry with Campbell.”

  I really like the warm press of her breast against my arm, and the gentle thrum of her heartbeat that I can both feel and see in the little hollow where her neck meets her collarbone. I even like the way she smells—the hint of vinegar and honey on her breath from the drink, the faint undertone of sweat from our walk.

  What I don’t like is her chatter interrupting my thoughts. She’s more observant than I thought, and now I’m wondering whether she’ll be the easily controlled partner I first imagined.

  I lean in closer, purposefully maximizing contact between our bodies. Her pulse quickens, as I expected, but she doesn’t move away.

  “Do you like waiting here in an empty room?” I ask, locking my eyes with hers as the pink slowly fades from her cheeks. “We’ve been allotted thirty-six hours, give or take, before we must return to our stable point and head home. I don’t know about you, but I doubt there are answers to the questions on my research agenda here in this parlor.”

  Katherine leans back in her chair after a moment, thankfully silent. Then she walks over to the bookshelf in the opposite corner, which holds a few dozen volumes, and runs her forefinger along the spines, eventually pulling a thin bound volume from the shelves. Another brief search and she snags a second book from the lower shelf.

  She tosses one of them to me. “I don’t remember seeing either of these
in our archives. Maybe they’re some of the Friend’s lost manuscripts.”

  I don’t respond, just thumb quickly through the essay collection, “Some Considerations, Propounded to the Several Sorts and Sects” by the Publick Universal Friend. It’s written in the obtuse, florid language used in all of her works. There’s an occasional, mildly interesting biblical reference, interspersed with paragraph after paragraph of commentary that’s either self-aggrandizing or else addressed at resolving petty squabbles between one local church and another.

  A complete waste of time. “I’m going to find the privy. Wait here.”

  It’s a lie, but I’m too edgy to sit. I need a few words with Jemima in private, anyway. The Friend’s desire to take credit for the prophecy will probably keep her from saying anything too revealing in front of Katherine, but you can never tell. Jemima was stupid enough to keep the prophecy vague, so she might be stupid enough to babble about it. But most importantly, Katherine can’t be around when I slip Jemima the medicine I’m carrying. The longer I wait around on the Friend to grant us an audience, the greater the possibility the fool will botch her second chance to add a miracle to her résumé.

  I veer down a hallway I saw Caesar take earlier, when he first left us in the parlor, and head up the stairs. The house is large by colonial standards, but I hear faint moans when I turn into the hallway, so it doesn’t take a genius to locate the room. When I nudge the door open, Jemima is praying, eyes closed, over a feverish woman in a damp white gown that clings to her frail body. Judge Potter’s wife, Penelope, is at the head of the narrow bed, sponging her daughter’s forehead.

  When I tap on the doorframe, Penelope looks up from her ministrations, frowning as she tugs a blanket over her daughter’s body. “Thou should not be here. Caesar asked thee to wait…”

  I glance away from the bed and say, “I beg thy mercy. My business with the Friend is urgent but it will only take a moment and she can return to her prayers for thy daughter. Another life hangs in the balance, else I’d not intrude in this way.”

  The Friend’s eyes flash with annoyance, but she places the Bible she was holding on the bed table. “Penelope, give thine own prayer over Susannah until my return. I shall not tarry.”

  Jemima Wilkinson isn’t exactly pretty. She’s somewhere between the written descriptions of a bewitching beauty I read in some of the histories from this era and the rather drab drawings that were made when she was well past her prime. In keeping with her “Universal Friend” persona, she wears an odd mix of male and female garments—a loose-fitting, black clerical robe and white cravat over a plain skirt.

  Definitely not my type, but her eyes are compelling. Dark, almost black, especially when she’s angry, as she is now.

  She ushers me down the stairs, toward an exit at the side of the house. Once we’re outside, she says in a low voice, “Hast thou come to claim credit even while the sky is merely dim?”

  “No, Friend,” I say, lowering my head in deference. “My wish is not to claim credit, but to spare thee pain. While I cannot speak with the passion thou hast, my visions are strong. Susannah will die by this time tomorrow, but I have medicine that can save her.”

  I take the vial from my pocket and place it in her hand. She pulls the cork from the top and sniffs the contents, wrinkling her nose.

  “This could be poison. From where was it obtained?”

  I grab the vial from her, pour a tiny spot of the liquid into my palm, and then press my tongue against it.

  “I cannot reveal my source, but I swear it will not harm Susannah. And she’s near to death anyway. You’ve seen enough patients to know that.”

  I realize that I’ve lapsed from plain speech as soon as the words leave my mouth. Jemima’s brow furrows, but she takes the vial back, replacing the cork.

  “Your manner is strange, John Franklin. William Potter made inquiries of thee with the Friends at Richmond. The man by that name who once worshipped among them is twice thine age.”

  “They recall my father. I was just a lad—”

  “Indeed.” Her lips press into a firm line. “I shall pray upon this matter.”

  She turns to go, but I grab her arm. “I would not pray too long, dear Friend.” I glance behind me at the new wing that Judge Potter recently added to his home, expressly for Jemima’s use. “I have foreseen that thy generous patron will grow to doubt thee if Susannah is not spared. And no potion can raise the dead.”

  The last bit isn’t entirely true, depending on the timing and the exact cause of death. And Potter’s faith in Jemima will not be shaken even when Susannah dies. He won’t begin to doubt the Friend for well over a decade, and the records that exist suggest their falling out was due to a legal dispute concerning money, not the mere death of one of his dozen or so offspring. I’m less certain about his wife, Penelope, however. When Potter and his adult children follow Jemima into the wilds of upper New York in 1790 to help build her new utopia, Penelope will remain behind in Little Rest.

  Still, I can tell from the look in Jemima’s eyes that the warning hits home. She’d feel much more secure if Potter and the rest of her followers believed her prayers could pull a girl back from an almost certain death.

  “I shall pray upon this matter,” she repeats, slipping the bottle into a small pouch concealed under her cloak. “Caesar will prepare a room. It would be best to have thee near at hand in the event there are…complications.”

  Her subtle emphasis on the last word has me worried. “While I thank thee for the kind offer, our belongings are in the rooms we’ve taken in the village. My wife knows nothing of my gift and she has been known to gossip. It would be best if this remains our secret.”

  “One of our people will fetch your things,” Jemima coos, giving me a smile that’s almost angelic. “Because I really must insist.”

  ∞

  “I don’t understand why we aren’t staying in Little Rest,” Katherine says, as we retreat down the hallway to our chamber, two doors down from the sickroom. “We’re supposed to stick to the plan.”

  She’s referring to the formal mission plan, submitted months in advance and cleared by Angelo and a half dozen other CHRONOS functionaries prior to each historical jump. We provide them with the precise historical questions we’ll address, a list of events we’ll witness directly, individuals we intend to contact, lodging arrangements for overnight stays, and so forth. According to the plan I submitted, I’m here to observe the impact of the legendary “dark day” on the Society of United Friends, an eighteenth-century millennialist sect. I haven’t read the plan Katherine submitted, but knowing her mentors, I’d wager it’s some feminist garbage about how Quaker society and its offshoots empowered female leaders.

  Supposedly, having a precise plan and adhering to it limits our impact on the timeline, on top of the host of pesky technical constraints they’ve built into the system. The primary nuisance is locking down our travel with the key. All historians must return to CHRONOS headquarters via the same stable point at which we arrive, with no side trips. While there’s some degree of flexibility as to when we return, anything more than a few days outside your preordained window will be flagged during your post-jump med scan. And, as my roommate Tate recently discovered, you’d better have a damned good explanation for your delay.

  These protocols help CHRONOS isolate accidental alterations to the timeline. They’ve never been willing to discuss the specifics with a mere historian like myself—CHRONOS bureaucracy is a complex, multilayered ecosystem—but between my own experiences and what I’ve pieced together from others, no one worries about minor blips on the historical radar. Minute, splinter-sized changes will happen in the course of any jump, but these rough edges are worn away within a few years. In some cases, the reports don’t even pick up those anomalies, especially on jumps like this one to tiny burgs where the historical recordkeeping is scanty at best. They’re looking for things that change history on a grand scale. The small tweak I’m working here with Friend
Jemima—along with the dozen or so other miracles and prophecies I intend to add over the next few years—will never show up in their aggregated results.

  Of course, little Kathy here is fresh out of training. CHRONOS protocol has been pounded into her pretty head on a daily basis for the past eight years. No doubt she believes the sky will come tumbling down if we deviate the slightest bit from the mission plan.

  Another downside to having a wide-eyed child as my traveling companion. Someone who’s been around a bit would be more relaxed. All of the historians, with the possible exception of Delia Morrell and Abel Waters, sneak away for a joyride from time to time.

  On the other hand, a more experienced partner would be more likely to pick up on any activities outside the norm. And since I can’t do every jump solo…Katherine is probably the lesser of the various evils I could have at my side.

  That doesn’t keep me from wanting to snap her neck right now. Once we’re in our room with the door closed behind us, I take a deep breath and answer her question. “It would have been impolite to refuse Jemima’s offer. And this gives us a chance to observe their reactions up close. To really understand what happens.”

  “I’m here to study Wilkinson and I haven’t even seen her yet!”

  I put the lantern on the dresser. “You just sat around a table with a family of Quakers—“

  She opens her mouth to correct me, so I quickly amend. “I know it’s a variant. The Society of United Friends. What-the-hell-ever. The point remains. This is an opportunity that fell into our laps and I took it.”

  “Chatting with a bunch of children won’t help me answer my research questions.”

  She may have a point there. I was by far the oldest occupant at the dinner table. We ate with the six boys and two girls who still reside in the Potter home, ranging from nineteen-year-old Benedict Arnold Potter (who will decide to drop his troublesome first name in a few months when his namesake is exposed as traitor) to four-year-old Pelham, who doesn’t like dried beef and was therefore given a bowl of something called pop-robin. Judge Potter isn’t due to return until later this evening. He dined with us in absentia, however—a dramatic portrait of the judge as a young man hangs above the dining room fireplace, staring down at his progeny and guests as we ate. Penelope came down briefly to introduce herself to Katherine and make sure we were being taken care of, then returned upstairs with one of her daughters to tend Susannah. I haven’t seen Jemima since we spoke three hours ago.