A Thief in Time (Thief in Time Series Book 1)

by Cidney Swanson

  Nothing? Halley had to choke back manic laughter.

  But in all seriousness, the closures of two highways leading out of Santa Barbara couldn’t have been more fortuitous for Halley’s purposes. She could use the landslides to explain Edmund’s presence.

  “Thanks so much for coming to get us,” said Jillian, hugging Halley as soon as DaVinci let her go. “Dad’s out on the John Deere, trying to move the tree off our drive.”

  DaVinci rolled her eyes. “More like he’s trying to justify the expense of owning a John Deere in the first place.”

  Jillian flushed pink.

  Halley, who knew something about being embarrassed over a parent, gave Jillian an extra hug, murmuring, “Good for your dad.”

  “Halley!” called DaVinci. For some unfathomable reason, DaVinci was whispering. “Why is that superb specimen ogling you like a total stalker?” She jerked her head to indicate Edmund.

  Taking a deep breath, Halley gestured to Edmund to come closer.

  “So, guys, this is Edmund. He’s, um, stranded. He’s an actor from Santa Ynez who helped me earlier when I was . . . out and about. I fell and he, um, caught me. And then I found out he’s sort of stranded—” She broke off, shrugging.

  DaVinci was already circling him with a look in her eye that said, Hello-can-I-sculpt-you-please-say-yes. Halley could hear her muttering “trapezius” and “latissimus dorsi.”

  Jillian, who was extremely well mannered, even in the face of handsome strangers wearing what were obviously Halley’s pajamas, held out her hand. “I’m Jillian.”

  “Take her hand,” Halley murmured to Edmund.

  Having taken Jillian’s hand, Edmund executed a bow over it.

  “Oh, and there we go with the bowing,” Halley said, pointedly addressing Edmund. She turned to her friends. “He’s preparing for a role. It’s a Shakespearean role.”

  “Cool,” said DaVinci, patently checking out his gluteus maximus. “Those are traffic-stopping,” she muttered to herself.

  “What company are you with?” Jillian asked politely.

  “He goes to Allan Hancock,” said Halley, improvising. She hoped the small community college had a theater department. “But he can’t really answer questions about school because he’s in this, uh, week-long challenge to act like an Elizabethan gentleman. With zero breaks. Whatsoever.”

  “Santa Ynez, huh?” DaVinci whistled. “You’re going to be stuck here a while with those landslides. Do you have any experience posing for life drawing? I’d love to sketch you.”

  “He’s not taking his clothes off for you,” murmured Halley.

  DaVinci shrugged. “The clothes can stay on.” She peered more closely at the clothes. And then she emitted a snorting laugh. “Oh. Oh my gosh. The clothes. Halley, are those your PJs?”

  “He was wearing a valuable costume when he was stranded. And he has to protect the costume. So, yeah. I gave him what I had with me.” It was unnerving how easily she could lie to her friends. She was behaving like her mother. She brushed the thought aside.

  “You poor thing,” Jillian said, smiling sadly at Edmund. Her phone pinged and she shaded the screen to read the message. “Oh, super! Look at my dad.”

  She held up a picture of her father, looking very pleased with himself, standing in front of a John Deere while wearing a pinpoint shirt and tie.

  DaVinci, rolling her eyes, grabbed a stack of nested boxes from under a small draped table and started wrapping and boxing Jillian’s sculptures.

  “There was a fallen tree limb across our driveway,” Jillian explained to Edmund. “And my dad moved it off all by himself! How about we all head over to my house once we’re packed up, okay? Edmund, I’m sure I can find real clothes for you. We can lounge by the pool and eat gelato to recover from our arts-and-quakes debacle.”

  DaVinci looked up from the boxes and inhaled sharply. “Debacle? Ha! Tell Halley, Jillian! Tell her, tell her, tell her!”

  “Oh, right! Oh my gosh, Halley!” Jillian had clasped her hands and was holding them excitedly under her chin. “We waited so we could tell you the good news in person.”

  DaVinci squealed. “We totally ‘ate all the Red Vines,’ or whatever your Danish saying is!”

  “It’s Op på lakrids: ‘up on the licorice,’” said Halley. It was a Danish phrase indicating one had been busy or energetic.

  “I was close,” said DaVinci.

  Jillian, shushing DaVinci with a raised eyebrow, explained. “I sold one of your pieces, Halley. I sold Casual Tomatoes to a studio lawyer from LA”

  Halley looked at her blankly. Casual tomatoes . . . ? Casual Tomatoes?

  “Are we up on our licorice or what?” squealed DaVinci.

  “You sold my painting? The one with the two red blobs?” asked Halley.

  “Blobs?” DaVinci shook her head at Halley. “Blobs?”

  “I sold it,” confirmed Jillian.

  Halley’s heart thundered in her chest. “For how much?”

  Jillian beamed. “Full price, naturally.”

  “I don’t . . . I can’t . . .” Halley paused to breathe. Her heart was a curling wave crashing on sand. “What was the painting marked at?”

  “Fifteen thousand,” squealed DaVinci. “Well, minus whatever American Express takes.”

  “Fifteen thousand?” Her heart thundered.

  “The most mom’s ever spent on a painting is twenty-one thousand,” added Jillian, grinning. “I could hardly believe it, but I guess that lawyer really wanted to impress his date!”

  “My lady?” said Edmund. He grabbed a small stool from the back of the booth and placed it beside Halley. “Be seated.”

  “Yes, sit, sit, sit!” cried DaVinci. “We can pack. You should kick off your shoes and plan a trip to Europe!”

  Jillian rearranged a fruit sculpture in its box. “Or I could help you with investing,” she suggested.

  “Sit, Halley,” murmured Edmund.

  Halley sat. Her pulse was racing. She wasn’t going to Europe. And she wasn’t going to invest her earnings. Not in the way Jillian meant. She thought of the tiny paradise snuggled between the Haunted Mansion and the Pirates of the Caribbean. The scent of root beer wafted through her mind. This was her chance. Her future. She could picture it all: working as a costume assistant (and eventually, a designer) in LA, meeting clients at Club 33 for lunch, and someday—someday—another meeting with her father. A connection. A spark. A new understanding of who she was and who she could be, free at last from the suffocation of living only as her mother’s daughter.

  17

  • HALLEY •

  Halley, Edmund, Jillian, and DaVinci squished into the cab of Halley’s truck and drove to the Applegate’s estate, which was called “Applewood” despite the lack of apple trees or apple-tree lumber anywhere on the estate’s seventeen acres. On the drive, Jillian decreed that Halley and Edmund would stay the night as her guests: “You’ll be no bother at all—the west wing is empty.”

  Shortly after they arrived, Halley’s mother sent six or seven texts. It had finally occurred to her to enquire whether Halley was okay.

  There might have been an earthquake while I was napping, maybe?

  Halley considered several responses to the text, but in the end she simply texted her mom she was fine.

  DaVinci couldn’t stay long at Jillian’s. Her family had weathered the quake, but not without incident. The 1970s addition over their garage had given up its pretense of structural viability, and after a quick swim and a quicker ogle at Branson, DaVinci left for home, borrowing one of the Applegates’ Smart Cars (they had two; Mrs. Applegate was serious about doing her part to save the environment).

  Edmund, Halley noted, did a stellar job of not staring at Jillian or herself in their bikinis. Halley’d had to borrow one of Jillian’s, which had an inordinate number of fabric strips meant to somehow crisscross her ribcage. “It’s Swedish,” Jillian had said, shrugging and adjusting three or four straps.

  At first Edmund
had been unable to settle. In spite of Halley’s explanations, he seemed incapable of understanding the appeal of lounging by a pool. After he’d spent half an hour pacing around the pool, the pool house, and the lawn next to the pool, Jillian ran off to check on the horses, and when she returned, Edmund enquired as to the possibility of riding one of them.

  “You ride?” asked Jillian.

  Halley sat up in alarm, suddenly afraid Edmund would decide to gallop up and down Montecito’s back roads, but Edmund happily agreed to stick to a bridle path that circled the estate. Halley saw him trotting past three or four times, wearing boots and jodhpurs Jillian’s groom must’ve loaned him. Edmund looked good on horseback, looked good wearing boots and jodhpurs. It didn’t hurt that Halley’s sleep-T stretched tightly across his torso as he trotted past. If DaVinci had been there, equestrian sketches would have been demanded, and even Jillian commented on how well he rode.

  When Edmund returned, Jillian announced dinner. “I hope you’re both okay if we keep it simple tonight. Branson’s just doing pizza.”

  “Just pizza” turned out to be wood-fired Pizzette Quattro Stagione (pizzas garnished with artichoke, prosciutto, Mediterranean olives, fresh mozzarella, fresh tomatoes, mushrooms, and cubed pancetta) served with a light summer wine of Applegate Estate provenance.

  As they sat to enjoy the sumptuous feast, a breeze picked up, cooling the patio. Halley shivered in her damp suit. Jillian, who’d been raised on a steady diet of “Consider your guests, dear,” ran off, returning with a bright armful of wraps. “Mom brought these back from Bali.”

  Halley slipped one on, the fabric smooth and slippery against her skin. She noticed Edmund became more talkative once they were all swathed in fabric. Had he been embarrassed earlier? Now, Edmund spoke in lengthy praise of Jillian’s horses, property, and pizza.

  Halley cringed with each antiquated expression that fell from Edmund’s mouth, but Jillian just laughed, praising Edmund for his thorough character research.

  By the time the three finished stuffing themselves, it had grown late, and Jillian apologized, saying she needed to check on the horses again.

  “Bucephalus hates earthquakes,” said Jillian. “The groom is sleeping in the stables tonight, and I just want to look in real quick.”

  She offered to first walk them over to the west wing, but Halley assured her she could find “her” room.

  Jillian smiled and explained to Edmund, “Even the staff refer to the Sense and Sensibility suite as ‘Halley’s room.’ I thought we’d put you, Edmund, in the As You Like It suite. To help you stay in character,” she added.

  Halley grinned, turning to Edmund. “Each of the six suites in the west wing is themed to a work of literature, and As You Like It is a Shakespearean play.”

  Jillian started to go, but then turned back, looking torn. “Maybe I should help you two get settled first,” she said.

  “We’ll be fine,” said Halley. “Take care of the horses. I promise to show Edmund where the spare towels are.”

  “And pajamas,” said Jillian.

  “And pajamas,” said Halley, because of course the Applegates had spare pajamas in each of the guest suites.

  “I asked Branson to set out some clothes for Edmund, but I haven’t checked—”

  “Go see the horses,” said Halley. “Really. We’ll be fine.”

  Jillian, after winking at Halley, nodded and strode away to the stables.

  Halley murmured to Edmund. “It’s probably causing her physical pain to not show you where the Evian water is kept.”

  Edmund raised an eyebrow.

  “Evian is—never mind,” said Halley. “Come on. Let’s show you your room.”

  The Applegates never ate dinner before 7:30, and since Halley had been up since 5:30 a.m., not to mention having traveled across entire historical time zones, she exhausted. She yawned as she showed Edmund the towels, pajamas, clothes (three outfits Branson had somehow found), and bottled Evian water. Halley even located a spare toothbrush for Edmund. He was first amused, and then frightened, by the toilet, not expecting the loud flushing noise. He didn’t seem too sure on the use of the toothbrush, either, but Halley thought it more polite not to ask questions about Elizabethan oral hygiene.

  Halley’s own mother had one simple rule of hospitality: don’t offer it. Fortunately, Halley had picked up her manners from Jillian. “I’m across the hall if you need anything,” she said.

  Edmund bowed deeply, wishing Halley a tight rest, whatever that meant.

  She stumbled into her room, out of her Balinese wrap and Swedish bikini, somehow managing to pull her tank top and panties on before falling into a heavy sleep.

  Her clock read 2:09 a.m. when she awoke to a familiar sound. Unless she’d imagined it, someone had just shut the door of her truck. She sat up, her heart pounding.

  18

  • EDMUND •

  Worry kept Edmund from sleep long past midnight. To consider everyone he knew as long dead filled him with dread. But if it was dreadful to consider them thus, it was also . . . impossible. He could not imagine them as reduced to worm meal. They were alive to him still, lost in an alternate location. And so he worried.

  He worried about his mother, who would be frantic when her eldest son didn’t return from the City. He worried about his brother, not knowing what Geoffrey had done with his mother’s pendant (or rather, the money from selling the pendant), or what Geoffrey might do when he tasted the possibility of power in his brother’s absence.

  Most of all, though, Edmund worried about his return home. Halley had spoken of an opportunity in ten days—now nine—when her mother would guard the magician’s domicile, but this felt like an eternity. And what if the magician had laid spells on his engines such that no other person could engage them? Edmund knew the man to be dangerous. He had observed carefully the magician’s body: his clenched hands, the way he weighed the rock as a man weighs a weapon he thinks to use. Edmund had not survived to adulthood so near London without developing an uncanny sense of when a knife might be drawn or a sword unsheathed.

  In addition to all his other concerns, Edmund worried because he wasn’t sleeping and hadn’t slept well for the past three nights and knew he needed sleep.

  After tossing in bed for more than two hours, he rose and crossed to the balcony doors of his chamber. They opened with ease, and he marveled at the clarity of the glass panels, marveling even more when he realized that each door was constructed of a single piece of glass made to look as though it were divided into panes. He stepped out into the night. The air was warm and redolent with scents he could not name. The scent of horses, far off, was the only thing he could identify with certainty; even the grass and trees smelled different.

  He turned his gaze upward to a lonely sprinkling of stars, leaned against the balcony railing, and slowly exhaled. Whatever ease or peace of mind he had been hoping to find, it wasn’t to be found out here.

  Had he been at home, he would have taken exercise, walking the long hall between his rooms and the kitchens. The hall in this, the west wing, was not so lengthy as that of his home, but perhaps the exercise would weary him enough that he could sleep.

  He opened the door slowly, warily, to keep it from creaking, but it made no sound. In this world, things which ought to be silent (a chamber pot) were not, while things which ought to creak and squeak (the bedstead, the door) made no sound. Even the floorboards as he stepped into the hall were silent. He began a slow, measured walk.

  What was his mother thinking? What was his brother doing?

  Was it even possible to ask, if they were long dead? Confusion churned in his stomach. He paused to steady himself, but as he did so, a chill ran along his shoulders. His proper sphere of concern was not what his mother thought, nor what his brother did. He ought rather to concern himself with his own course of action: What was he doing? And more importantly, What ought he to be doing?

  Phrased thus in bluntness, the answer became plain. He ought n
ot to be wandering the halls of another’s manor—he ought to be seeking a return to his own estate. His wonder at this new world and his infatuate regard for Mistress Halley had turned him from what ought to be his first concern. He was Edmund Aldwych, shortly to be installed under oath as the Earl of Shaftsbury, and he was bound by honor and duty to seek as swift a return as could be accomplished.

  For a count of ten, he tried to see a different way forward, but there was none. His duty was clear: he must break into the magician’s chamber or die trying. And he must do it now, not nine days hence.

  For a brief moment he paused before Halley’s door. If he woke her to take his leave, she would try to persuade him to stay, to wait another nine days until the magician was away. His chin sank to his chest. He knew the power she held over him. There could be no God b’ye. Swiftly, he turned from her room and made his way to her truck to retrieve his sword. If he met with the magician again, he would not this time meet him unarmed.

  The air outside had grown chill and moist, and once Edmund had strapped on his sword belt and sword, he secured the door to Halley’s truck, lest the damp should enter therein. This done, he began his march upon the estate of Jules Khan, praying his recollection of the way did not fail him in the darkness of night.

  19

  • KHAN •

  Khan had descended into his laboratory at 2:17 a.m., finally admitting to himself he wasn’t going to sleep. He theorized it was one of the side effects of passing through the temporal rift. He’d written a paper on the topic, examining the effects of the ultracontracted voyages through space–time, noting that while things such as muscle tone and bone density were virtually unaffected, the shock to the nervous system was registered in the release of catecholamines, especially adrenaline, which was observed to produce insomnia, nervousness, and lowered immunity toward illness.