The Time Travel Chronicles

by Peralta, Samuel

  I nod toward the window, where a full moon hangs in the sky, pinkish-red, but still a far cry from the dark, blood red orb that history recorded tomorrow night. “The girl—the one who’s around your age? She spent a good ten minutes telling us how the Friend predicted the moon you see there. You couldn’t have gotten any better information than that at the inn. The action takes place tomorrow, Kathy. Tonight simply gets us into place and staying here avoids a hike back and forth from the village.”

  Our bags are on the bed, fetched from the inn as Jemima promised. I shove Katherine’s bag in her direction and start digging through my own.

  “Why didn’t you request separate rooms like we had at the inn? It would have made more sense, given that the entire reason we’re supposedly here is to ask the Friend’s counsel on whether we should be celibate. Did you even mention that to her?”

  “I didn’t really have time, Kathy. It was a two minute conversation held outside the privy. The woman was in a rush to get back to Susannah.”

  “Sorry. I guess you’re right.” She’s quiet for a moment, and then adds, “Do you think that’s why Mrs. Potter follows Jemima? Maybe she wants the judge to embrace celibacy so that she’s not spitting out a kid every few years.”

  It’s equally likely that Penelope Potter realizes her randy old goat will never embrace celibacy, and she’s actively hoping his prayer sessions with Jemima are exactly what the townspeople think they are so that she’s off the hook in that regard. I’d tell Katherine that, but it would probably send her off on a boring tangent about how the miracle of birth control saved women from a life of drudgery and I’m too tired to pretend that I care.

  When I finally locate the item I’m searching for in my bag, her eyebrows shoot straight up.

  “Is that a toothbrush? How on earth did you get that approved?”

  “Special request from the prop department. The handle is bone, and the bristles look like, but damn well better not be, swine hair. These were first used around 1780, so yeah, it was approved. If you’re nice to me, I’ll let you borrow it.”

  She wrinkles her nose. “No, thanks. I have a cloth in my bag.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  I walk over to the water jug and dampen the brush, thinking as I scrub how nice it would be if the overlords of CHRONOS would approve toothpaste. Or better yet, a portable sonic scrubber.

  When I’m done, I spit into the side basin and then turn back to face her. “They don’t tell you this during training, Kathy, but everyone goes off plan. We improvise. Otherwise, we learn nothing.”

  Her eyes remain wary. And while I can’t be certain in the dim light, her trademark blush seems to be missing. Has Katherine Shaw gotten used to my presence over the past few hours?

  That’s something I need to fix.

  I take a few steps toward her. Tipping her chin upward with my thumb, I give her my best, most reassuring smile, as I trace her lower lip with my forefinger. “Relax, okay? I’ll cover for you if they give us any flack. Promise. And if you’re worried about the sleeping arrangements, I’ll take a quilt onto the floor.”

  For several seconds I hold her gaze, forcing her to be the one to look away. And even in the lantern light, I can tell that her face reddens.

  She finally steps back. Her mouth opens, like she’s about to say something, but we’re interrupted by a faint tapping.

  When I open the door, Penelope Potter is there, looking exhausted. “I beg pardon, John Franklin. I have a favor to ask of Katherine.”

  I move away and Katherine approaches a little hesitantly. “Yes?”

  “My daughter has retired for the night and so has the Friend. We have been tending Susannah for days with little rest and I told them I could manage for a bit on my own. But the judge has returned from his trip. I must speak with him briefly, and I do not wish to leave Susannah alone. Would thee be willing to watch over her for a short time?”

  Katherine nods, but I hold up my hand. There are no markings on the bottle I gave Jemima, but if she left it open, Katherine might be able to tell from the scent that it wasn’t your average herbal cure.

  “My wife is tired. It would be best if—”

  Katherine smiles at Penelope. “I need a moment with my husband and then I will gladly join thee.”

  Penelope nods, and as she’s closing the door, I ask, “Has Susannah’s condition improved?”

  “Truly, I cannot tell. The Friend says we can only pray.”

  When she’s gone, Katherine turns toward me. “Thanks for the concern, but you were right before. This is a good opportunity to view their lives close up. I won’t interfere in any way. And as for your offer to sleep on the floor?” She tosses me a pillow and quilt from the bed. “That goes without saying.”

  ∞

  The Abbey

  Near Little Rest, Rhode Island

  May 19, 1780

  Judge Potter is at the table with young Benedict when Katherine and I arrive at breakfast. He’s clearly a man of considerable appetite, judging from the food heaped on his plate. Servants are clearing several other places and I’m delighted to see we’ve missed another meal with the Potter brood.

  The judge doesn’t look much like the portrait above the mantel these days. His face is bloated and his once-striking black mane is now sparse on top and streaked with gray.

  “You must be John Franklin,” he says, finishing a bit of egg before he stands to greet us. “Penelope told me thou art here as a guest of the Friend.”

  “I thank thee, Judge—“

  He shakes his head. “None have title above the rest in our Society. I am simply William.” His eyes graze over Katherine, with a glint that makes me certain he’s either ignoring the celibacy rule or else having a serious struggle with Satan over the matter. Katherine’s blush, which I found attractive yesterday, is beginning to grate. Or maybe it’s just knowing that Potter’s gaze, rather than mine, is the cause.

  “My wife, Katherine,” I say, placing a proprietary hand on her shoulder.

  “A pleasure to meet thee both. Please, join me.”

  Benedict has nearly finished, and he excuses himself as the servants place two plates in front of us. I hold a chair out for Katherine and the judge gives me an odd look. Now I’m wondering whether that custom is followed by the Quakers.

  “Is Susannah improved this morning?” I ask.

  “She is indeed,” Potter replies. “Remarkably so. The Friend has proclaimed it nothing short of a miracle.”

  Katherine’s fork clanks against her plate, but she recovers quickly. “A miracle indeed,” she says, smiling at Potter. “The fever was raging when I sat with her before retiring. I feared she would not last the night.”

  He nods. “Penelope too was certain the girl was near death when I returned last night, but the fever broke in the wee hours. Susannah is alert now, and has even taken some broth.”

  “Praise be to the Friend for interceding.” I glance toward the window, where the sky is again overcast. “Your children noted the shade of the moon last night, saying that the Friend believes the odd weather is a sign.”

  Potter’s lips tighten a bit, causing me to wonder if Jemima shared my role in that prediction, but then he smiles. “God speaks to the Friend as to no other. He speaks through her.”

  As if on cue, the Friend herself enters the room. Her mood is much improved since yesterday. She beams first at Potter, and then at me and Katherine.

  “Children, bless thee for thy patience. I apologize for the wait, but my prayers and counsel were needed with Susannah.”

  Once Jemima is seated and served, the four of us focus on the meal—eggs, more of the dried beef, and a porridge of some sort.

  Katherine breaks the silence after a moment. “You’re—” she begins, and then clears her throat when she realizes the error. “Thou art certain of Susannah’s health then? She was so very ill when I sat with her last night.”

  The Friend’s eyes narrow briefly, but then she smiles. “God heard
my pleas and saved our Susannah. When I held her in my arms in the hours before dawn, I was near despair, but then I heard a voice whisper that she would be spared to greet our Lord when He joins us here on Earth. And that joyful hour approaches. On this very day the sky will darken, and the moon will be as blood. As Peter tells the faithful in the second Book of Acts, ‘The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come.’”

  We return to our room after breakfast, promising to meet the Friend in her quarters at eleven. Katherine’s shoulders are rigid with tension and as soon as the door is closed behind us, she whirls to face me.

  “What happened, Saul? The accounts I read said that Susannah died at eight in the morning, in the arms of the Friend. Last night, I was amazed to think that she would make it even to dawn. Maybe the accounts were wrong? Maybe she dies tonight? A relapse?”

  “Perhaps,” I say, giving her a comforting smile. “We’ll know better as the day goes on.”

  ∞

  Our session with the Friend has been going on for only an hour, but it’s one of the most boring I’ve spent in my twenty-five years. Verse after verse after verse on the value of celibacy, especially in these days when the Lord is knocking on the door, ready to usher in the Millennium.

  Jemima would likely rattle on for hours if not for the steadily darkening room. We all keep glancing at the window, and Jemima finally breaks off in mid-sentence around twelve fifteen, when we hear noises outside. She pulls the curtain away and laughs—a giddy, twittering sound that doesn’t really fit her.

  “It’s happening. Behold the sky! Just as my visions fore…told.” Jemima pauses and casts a nervous look in my direction, probably wondering if I’m about to steal her thunder. When I say nothing, she heads toward the door. “I am needed elsewhere, friends.”

  Katherine and I follow her outside. I park myself on the edge of the porch and watch the sky. It’s darker than the one I see most evenings from my balcony in the District. Even on clear nights, the lights from the cities along the EC can make it difficult to spot the moon, let alone the stars.

  Those who scoffed at Jemima’s prophecies seem to have reconsidered, judging from the steady flow of visitors at the gate. Carriages and buggies clog the North Road that we walked in on yesterday. The people on foot, walking along the side of the road, are making better time than those who ride. I wouldn’t have thought there were this many people in Little Rest, although I guess some may be coming in from surrounding villages. I catch the eye of one man as he passes in front of me. It’s the owner of the inn, the one who jeered when we asked directions to the Abbey yesterday. He startles when he recognizes me, like he’s worried I’ll tattle to the Friend, and then hurries after the stout woman and four young children who arrived with him.

  Word has spread about Susannah’s recovery as well, amazingly fast in this era before any sort of mass communication.

  It’s easy to see that the Friend is in her element, blessing each newcomer quickly before moving to the next. The Potter offspring have been pulled into service, directing the people to the courtyard behind the house, where a small, unadorned pulpit sits in the center of a raised wooden platform surrounded by benches.

  Katherine stands near the gate, a few feet behind Jemima, close enough to hear each exchange between the Friend and her admirers. Typical new historian behavior, thinking you need to mentally catalogue every comment, every action. She’ll forget half of it before she can make her report anyway. The entire point of being here is to observe, to experience the event as a whole. That requires stepping back to see the full picture.

  Besides, I already know what the Friend is saying. What she’s doing. Because she’s saying and doing exactly what I would do in her place. What I will do in her place. Offer a blessing and a smattering of scripture to those who enter and fall to their knees in prayer. Give credit to the higher power, but don’t contradict when someone elaborates your role. By tomorrow, the story of her prophecy, and especially Susannah’s recovery, will have grown. Jemima will not merely have pulled Susannah back from the brink of death. Susannah will have actually died, her skin growing cold and her limbs rigid before the Lord heard Jemima’s pleas and breathed the very life back into the girl’s body.

  So I just watch until the party moves around back. By this time, the only light is the fire that several of the men built about fifteen yards behind the stage where Jemima now stands. It’s far too warm for the fire and the smoke only adds to the oppressive thickness of the air.

  A confused owl, no doubt groggy from lack of sleep, hoots in the distance as the Friend steps onto the platform. Her short frame is outlined in the glow of the fire behind her. How many in this group would have said only yesterday that Jemima was a consort of the devil? I’ll wager half would have been more inclined to toss her into the fire than to listen as she preached in front of it.

  Katherine, who is nothing if not tenacious, has pushed her way past the crowd and now stands near the front. I make polite excuses and shoulder through to join her.

  “Having fun?” I whisper.

  She grins up at me, but her expression shifts to worry as she looks beyond me. I turn and see two of Potter’s older sons carrying a chair in which Susannah sits, frail and tired, but very much alive.

  “Maybe she relapses,” Katherine mumbles. “From being outside?” She opens her mouth to say something else, but then the Friend begins to speak.

  “Therefore…” Jemima’s voice is clear and strong, despite the foul air, and I have no doubt that it carries even to the back of the crowd of well over a hundred, but she pauses until the crowd is completely silent. “Therefore will I number you to the sword, and ye shall all bow down to the slaughter: because when I called, ye did not answer; when I spake, ye did not hear; but did evil before mine eyes, and did choose that wherein I delighted not.”

  A nearly inaudible murmur runs through the crowd as she paces from one end of the platform to the next, the tails of her black coat flapping like the wings of a crow as she turns back to them, citing another verse. “But they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and misused his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people, till there was no remedy.”

  Verse after verse follows, her voice rising to a crescendo and then falling, only to rise again with a new passage, each echoing the same refrain. I never realized how many verses of the Bible boil down to, I tried to tell you idiots, but no—you wouldn’t listen.

  After a good twenty minutes of this, Jemima points up at the darkness above her where the only light is the dim, but most definitely blood red moon. “Shame be upon those who waited until the very sky proclaimed the truth, who could not hear the message of the Lord’s prophet above the whisper of thine own interests! Thou comest today seeking mercy, when thou hast no mercy in thine own heart. Will the Lord heed the cries of those who waited until the final hours?” A pause for dramatic effect as she scans the faces before her, and then she says simply, with a note of regret, “I know not.”

  She pauses to let that sink in for a minute, before continuing. “But this I know. Those who embraced the Word, who exalted the prophet?” The Friend holds out her hand to several people in the congregation that I don’t recognize and then to Judge Potter, who stands near the edge of the platform, unashamed as tears stream down his cheeks. “They shall be among the blessed. Indeed, thou art already blessed. This very day, I witnessed the miracle of life restored to one of the faithful, a token from God through these hands to save from grief our friend, William Potter, who has given freely to spread God’s word.”

  She reels off a list of other names, presumably of those who have contributed to the cause, promising that God will bestow a special (but very vague) blessing upon them soon. She reminds me of Campbell preening at his annual party, sucking up to the various families (including my own) who keep his profit margins high.

  I tune Jemima out as she continues with her own
version of the Beatitudes, until Katherine gasps audibly and I look back up to see Jemima’s hands stretched out toward me.

  “…who offered services and wise counsel in a time of need. The Lord’s eye is upon thee, and He knows thy worth.”

  I nod and smile, then glance down at Katherine. Her face is frozen, and several seconds go by before she tears her eyes away from the spot on the stage where Jemima was standing to look back at me.

  “What did she mean, Saul? What did you do?” Her voice is soft, barely audible.

  But someone could still overhear, so I grab her arm and pull her toward the edge of the crowd, which is now backed up onto the porch of the house. Katherine tries to pull her arm away, but I tighten my hold, dragging her along until we’re back in our chamber. The room is lit only by the faint glow of the fire around the corner of the Abbey and the even fainter, reddish glow of the CHRONOS keys beneath our clothing.

  I release Katherine’s arm and grab her by the shoulders. “You dropped cover in public. You dropped plain speech. You used my name, for God’s sake—“

  “What. Did. You. Do?” She’s practically yelling now. “Why did she thank you? Did you tell her something when you spoke with her alone? Why is Susannah still alive?”

  She is so small, the bones under my hands so delicate, that I have the fleeting vision of snapping her in two like a wishbone. Probably not the best idea, however, if I want to remain off the CHRONOS radar.

  “Calm down, okay? I have no idea why she thanked me. Maybe because in this era, as your husband, I own you. You’re the one who studies women’s rights, so I’m guessing you’ve heard of coverture? Did she thank any women?”