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

by Cidney Swanson

  Her mother stared at the extended bill. Snatched it. Glared at Halley. Turned to go. Turned back.

  “We are not done with this conversation, Halley.”

  But they were done. They’d been done for years. Maybe for always. Halley just hadn’t noticed it until now.

  “I’ll move my stuff out tonight,” Halley said flatly.

  Her mother’s face turned pale and then reddened.

  “Fine. If that’s what you want, then . . . fine. But don’t expect you can just come crawling back the next time you need something.”

  “I don’t want anything from you,” Halley said softly. But as soon as she’d said it, she realized it wasn’t true. There was something she wanted from her mother. Something she needed desperately—as much as she needed that membership at Club 33.

  Her mother was turning to leave.

  “Wait!” said Halley. “There is something I want. You owe me this. I want a name. My father’s name. I didn’t even get his name the one time we met.”

  Turning back around, her mother stared at her blankly. “The time you met? What are you talking about? You’ve never met your father.”

  Halley felt a swell of anger rising, but she kept her outward calm. “I met him once when he took me to Anaheim.”

  “Anaheim?” Her mother looked genuinely baffled. “You’ve never been to Anaheim with your father. You couldn’t have been.”

  Halley felt as though her throat was swelling shut. Had she somehow imagined that memory? Created it out of the deep need she had to know her father? No. No. She knew the truth.

  “My father took me to Disneyland when I turned seven. For my birthday. I know it happened. It was real.”

  Her mother’s expression shifted from confusion to something else. “Oh, that.”

  Yes, that, thought Halley. She swallowed.

  “You knew how to get in touch ten years ago. I want his name and I want that contact information. I don’t care how old it is.” It was better than nothing.

  “Halley, that was an actor.”

  “What?” Halley heard her pulse whooshing in her ears.

  “An actor. You wouldn’t shut up about wanting a father, so I traded cat-sitting with an actor who took you to Disneyland and played the part of your father. I think he’s in a psychiatric hospital now—”

  “My father is in a hospital?”

  “No, Halley. Try and keep up. “ Her mother’s tone dripped sarcasm. “The actor who pretended to be your father so you would stop pestering me is in the hospital. I have no idea who your father is. I went to a donor bank to get impregnated.”

  “You—I—What?” The ground seemed to shift under Halley’s feet. “That’s not possible.”

  Her face twisted with pain. It had never occurred to her that the man who called himself her dad . . . wasn’t. Her broken dreams, her mother’s unkept promises, all of these swarmed her, a rush of noisy wings beating the air. They pressed against her, crushing her lungs: the thousand small ways her mother had made her feel unloved, uncared for, unwanted.

  Halley couldn’t breathe. She paused and placed her hands on her thighs, leaning forward to catch her breath. Her eyes were brimming. Her chest ached. She forced herself to breathe. To speak.

  “How could you? What kind of person lets her child think . . . Who are you?”

  Her mother made a harrumph sound. And then she turned and left, her silk wrap billowing out behind her like a storm cloud.

  Halley stood still for a count of ten. And then retreated to the stool in the back corner of the booth. And started to cry.

  Five minutes later, Edmund found her, sitting with her back to the sidewalk, heaving with broken sobs.

  53

  • EDMUND •

  “Lady?” Edmund said, alarmed.

  Halley looked up, her eyes reddened as if from prolonged sorrow.

  “Art thou injured?” He examined her face and clothing, looking for signs of hurt.

  She shook her head and opened her mouth to speak, but the attempt only produced audible sobs, not words.

  “Thy suffering is great,” murmured Edmund, kneeling beside her. “Might I . . . might I assist thee?”

  Halley, her chest heaving convulsively, threw her arms around his neck and held him like a drowning soul clinging to preservation.

  He remained there, on the summer-dry grass at her feet, holding her, supporting her weight, allowing her to cry out the dreadful grief inside her. On either side of Halley’s booth, purveyors were taking down their temporary structures, their workdays completed. At last, her sobs quieted, and Edmund released her, reaching for his handkercher, only to realize he had none upon him. Nor did the lady, it seemed. He unwound the soft scarf from his neck—her tears had already soaked one side of it. “Here, lady. Dry thine eyes.”

  Her voice rasping, she spoke her first words since his arrival. “Why are you here?”

  “I thought to aid thee at day’s end,” he said.

  “You . . . walked all the way here from the apartment? To help me tear down my booth?”

  He smiled softly. “For what reason else should I be here?”

  At this, fresh tears streamed down her cheeks.

  Edmund’s heart seized. “Forgive me. I meant not to increase your distress.”

  Halley shook her head. “You haven’t. It’s just . . . I was horrible to you last night. I owe you an apology. You were right. I shouldn’t have abandoned my . . . my . . . friends.”

  At this final word, her voice cracked, and he opened his mouth to offer comfort, but she kept talking.

  “DaVinci has wanted her own gallery show since we were six years old. I didn’t even text her to tell her I wouldn’t be there. I was too scared because I knew it was wrong, but I did it anyway. I abandoned her. I abandoned them both. What I did was unforgivable.”

  Edmund didn’t know how to answer. Though her friends had been unwilling to speak to him of it, he had observed the provocation aroused by Halley’s absence.

  “Might they not forgive thee if asked?” he said at last.

  “I don’t deserve it.”

  “Few of us deserve all the good or ill we receive,” said Edmund.

  Halley sighed heavily and reached for him. He held her long, tightly, until at last he felt her pulling away. Her eyes were dry now, and Edmund thought she looked calmer. And glad to see him again, in spite of her grief, in spite of the fact he was leaving tonight, in spite of everything. She even attempted a smile. It was a thin, wan thing, gone almost at once, but it made his pulse race.

  “Is there aught I can do to relieve thee?” he asked.

  Her brows drew slightly together. “You’re speaking in ‘thees’ again.”

  Edmund felt his cheeks warming. “You will forgive me, pray.”

  He had done well the whole day, using only the formal “you” with DaVinci and Jillian, and keeping silent around others. But to see Halley in such pain and to speak to her in the cold, formal address of “you”? He had switched to the intimate form of “thee” without thought.

  “Will you allow me to aid you in the dismantling of this structure?” he asked.

  Halley nodded and dabbed at her eyes with his scarf.

  “Rest,” he said. “I will do all.”

  “No. I’m good. I can help,” she said. “Well . . . give me a minute. I need to call DaVinci and Jillian.”

  Nodding, Edmund turned to the booth and began to pull the paintings down, stacking them carefully one inside another and eventually resting them upon a clever wheeled device Halley pointed him to behind the booth. Before he had begun to disassemble the booth itself, Halley had finished her calls.

  “They didn’t pick up,” she said. “I left apologies.”

  When all the parts of the booth had been loaded onto what Halley called the “hand truck,” they walked together to Halley’s pickup. Edmund had been considering how to ask Halley about her earlier grief, which he suspected indicated a failure to sell her wares. He had conclude
d there was no gentle way to do it.

  “Mistress,” he asked as they reset the tailgate, “I would not increase your grief, but I would know whether or no you earned the remaining payment for your club.”

  Halley sighed heavily. Tears filled her eyes, but she did not allow them to spill.

  “That,” she said as they settled in the cab, side by side, “is a complicated question to answer.”

  54

  • HALLEY •

  Halley started the truck and pulled into Fiesta weekend traffic. She didn’t answer Edmund’s question right away. She wasn’t sure she could without completely falling apart, and she still had big things to get through before the day ended. She had an apartment to clear out of. She had Edmund to say goodbye to.

  Edmund.

  Her heart ached.

  She cared for him. She might even love him. Not his beauty, not his sixteenth-century quirks, but him. But whether it was care or love or something in between, she had to let him go. The only way to care for him, truly care for him, was to accept that he had needs and responsibilities and a life to return to.

  So how was she supposed to answer his question about Club 33?

  She couldn’t bear the thought of Edmund spending the rest of his life believing she’d lost her own life’s dream. She didn’t want him sad or pitying when he remembered her. She wanted him to remember their laughter. Walking up State Street . . . Branson’s pizza . . . their kiss.

  Sighing, Halley pulled herself back to this moment. She’d made it all the way back to the apartment, and she still hadn’t answered Edmund’s question. She killed the engine but didn’t get out. What could she say in answer to him? She didn’t want to lie. You didn’t lie to the people you cared for—the recent contact with her mother had driven this home. A partial truth then. The truth told slant.

  Swallowing hard, she undid her seatbelt. And then, turning to face Edmund, she spoke.

  “Something came to my attention today that made me realize . . . I realized I don’t want to join Club 33 after all,” she said. She took a deep breath. “I’m going to use the money I made to get my own place instead. I’d love your help grabbing all my things from the apartment, if you don’t mind, before we head to the professor’s.”

  His brow furrowed with worry, but then he seemed to accept what she’d said. Nodding deferentially, he replied. “As you wish, lady. I should be honored to assist you in any manner.”

  It was polite. It was kind. It also felt . . . distant.

  But perhaps this was best; she had to accept they were parting. Distance was a given.

  But then he exhaled heavily and spoke again. “Forgive me, mistress, but are you certain all is well? I found you in great distress only a little while since. I would do anything—nay, I would hazard all—to see you happy.” He dropped his voice. “Surely you must know this.”

  Halley’s chest tightened.

  He cared.

  Or loved.

  Or something in between.

  He would do anything . . .

  Would he stay for her?

  She saw the answer in his eyes. He would stay. For her. She couldn’t breathe.

  And he couldn’t stay.

  She couldn’t let him abandon the family and people relying on him.

  She took a shaky breath. “Just hold me.”

  And he did. He held her like she used to wish her mom would hold her when she scraped her knees. He held her like her friends held her when she got bad news. He held her like a lover with a broken heart.

  And she breathed it in. She memorized the feel of his arms around her, of his face pressed to her hair, of his pulse keeping time with hers. This was real. This was true. This was something no one could take away from her. For all she knew, she would face tomorrow friendless as well as homeless, but right now she had Edmund. And tomorrow, when this moment belonged to the past and not the present, there would still be one thing no one could take from her: the knowledge she had mattered.

  It gave her the strength to pull away from him.

  “Come on. Let’s get this over with.”

  55

  • HALLEY •

  Halley swept through the apartment like the hot Santa Ana winds that gusted over the Santa Ynez Mountains. She was thorough and she was swift. Anything that might be considered as belonging to both herself and her mother, she left behind. Many of her personal things—earrings, eau de toilette, tweezers, nail files—had ended up on her mother’s small vanity table.

  Halley combed the vanity, left to right, careful not to knock over the dozen miniature picture frames resting on it. Only one picture was of Halley. At three years old, she’d posed with Oprah Winfrey inside Pierre Lafond’s. Halley’s mother was still in hopes of getting a call someday to dog-sit for Oprah. The rest of the pictures were of Inga Mikkelsen, smiling with various celebrities. Halley left the Oprah picture behind.

  The only thing Halley hesitated over was a pair of Ugg slippers. She’d been twelve dollars short when she’d bought them. Her mother had spotted her the money, later insisting the hundred-dollar slippers were 12 percent hers. In the end, Halley left the slippers behind because she didn’t want to deal with the phone calls and texts from her mother, irately demanding the return of her 12 percent.

  It was at this point that Halley’s $15,000 offered a small measure of consolation. If she absolutely couldn’t live without Uggs, she could buy new ones. She’d been thinking a lot about her money and how far it would get her living on her own. The answer was not very far. She needed a job. A couple of times this summer Halley had insisted she was getting a job, but her mother had always vetoed the idea, saying she needed to know she could count on Halley to help out in a pinch: “I get migraines, Halley. Migraines!”

  Halley rolled her eyes. She’d let this go on for way too long. But when she stood by the front door for the last time, when she removed the apartment key from her key ring and set it on the kitchen counter, Halley felt tears threatening. Edmund noticed at once and placed a gentle hand between her shoulder blades.

  “It’s nothing,” said Halley. It was nothing, but she hesitated, still clutching the apartment key: the last vestige of what she’d called home. “We should head over to the professor’s.”

  “Lady, I should like to gaze upon the Pacificum one last time.”

  One last time.

  The request made it clear what she was really saying goodbye to today. It gave her the strength to drop the key on the counter, walk outside, and shut the apartment door forever.

  She felt lighter as they descended the stairs.

  “Perhaps we might visit the beach of the butterflies,” said Edmund.

  Halley smiled. “It’s ‘Butterfly Beach.’ And yes. Absolutely, yes.”

  In less than ten minutes, they were leaning on the eucalyptus log backed up against Butterfly Beach’s golden sandstone cliffs. The sun hung over the silvered ocean, an orange orb. The sand had been in shade long enough that it felt cool beneath their toes.

  It was Edmund’s last night in the New World. These were the last hours she would spend with him, but Halley couldn’t settle and enjoy these stolen minutes. Her mind was back in the apartment again: spinning, racing, consumed by all the physical reminders of her mother’s self absorption. Halley wanted to leave it behind, to padlock it and forget the combination. But what if she couldn’t? What if the genes in her body were already at work, slowly turning her into her mother? Was her destiny already decided?

  Wasn’t she, after all, an apple from an apple tree?

  Halley felt her throat swelling. “Do you really think I’ll end up like my mother?”

  Edmund removed his gaze from the sea. His eyes narrowed, their golden-brown irises catching the sun’s last light.

  “Like what you said yesterday,” she murmured, dropping her eyes. “That I have to be an apple because she was an apple.”

  “Ah, mistress . . .” Edmund sighed heavily and took one of her hands in his. “I must beg
your forgiveness. It was ill-spoke.”

  Halley felt the warmth of his palm as it pressed against hers.

  “But did you mean it? Do you think it’s true?”

  He paused before responding. “Know you of the four humors?”

  Halley frowned, feeling vaguely as if she’d heard the phrase.

  “Learned men of medicine do blame our humors for faults of disposition,” said Edmund. “We say of a melancholic humor that it makes a man sad and given to thought, whereas one who is sanguine interesteth himself in others. The phlegmatic man is at rest within himself and seeks the betterment of others, while the choleric are aggressive and accomplish much.”

  This did not answer her question.

  “Those who do practice physick say we are born thus,” Edmund continued. “And yet, it seemeth to me—pardon, it seems to me—that there is more at play than that with which we are born.”

  Halley watched the sun. In twenty minutes it would be lost into the sea. For some reason, the thought made tears gather on her lower lids.

  “Halley, it seems to me that there are people in this world who have not much to give unto others.”

  As he said it, she felt her shoulders tense. “Yeah. Do you think I’ll end up like that?”

  Edmund turned to face her, taking her other hand in his. “Lady, I believe you have been shown how to live in such a manner. But that you do ask the question? Methinks this speaks to a difference in your temperament.”

  “I was selfish today. I chose to do the booth even when you tried to talk me out of it.”

  Edmund was silent for a moment before responding.

  “You seem to me to care deeply for others. If you do not always behave in the best way, it is perhaps that you have had bad example.”

  “Maybe,” murmured Halley. “But I’m so afraid I’m going to end up just like her.”

  “Nay, lady. Can you not see that your very fear is the proof you will not? Would your mother fear to be as she is?”

  Her mother would justify the hell out of it, thought Halley. Slowly, she shook her head. “She sees no problem being the way she is.”