The setting sun fell, and a long thin line of gold lay quiet on the water. Dusk slipped in among them. The carriage taking Bridget back to the station clattered heavily down the lanes of the Stratton estate.
Strat bade Harriett and Devonny and Florinda good night, and took Miss Lockwood on his arm. They walked the long way through the gardens, out of view of the veranda. The moon rose, its delicate light a silver edge to every leaf.
“I love you,” she said. “I will always love you.” Her throat filled with a terrible final agony. I could not love you, dear, so much, loved I not honor more. Somehow I’ve got to love honor more than Strat. I have to be a better person than Miss Bartten.
Annie had tasted both sides of time, and each in its way was so cruel to women. But she must not be one of the women who caused cruelty; she must be one who eased it. “I can’t stay, Strat,” she whispered.
“Yes, you can!” He was shocked, stunned. “That’s why you came back! You love me! That’s how you traveled, I know it is, it was love! Anna Sophia, you—”
“Marry Harriett,” she said.
He stood very still. Their hands were still entwined, but he was only partly with her now.
“I love you,” whispered Strat.
But she understood now that love was not always part of the marriages these people made. He was affectionate toward Harriett, and would be kind to her; Harriett needed Strat; that was enough.
And my mother and father? she thought. What will be enough for them?
She’d cast her parents aside without a moment’s thought when she changed centuries. But they were still there, going on with their lives, aching and hurting because of each other, aching and hurting because of their daughter.
“I’ve been cruel,” she said. “To you and to my parents, to Harriett and to Sean. And I’m going to be punished for it. Time is going to leave my heart here with you, while my body will go on. I was thinking what power I had, but really, the power belongs to Time.” She touched his odd clothes, the funny big collar, the soft squashy tie, the heavy turned seams. Cloth—in this century, always cloth that you could touch. And only cloth that you could touch. “Oh, Strat, it’s going to be the worst punishment! I’m going to leave my heart in your century and then have to go occupy my body in the next.”
He looked glazed. He too clung, but for him the cloth was nothing; he neither saw it nor felt it. “Annie, I love you. If you stay with me,” he promised, “I’ll take care of you forever. You’ll never have to make another decision. I’ll protect you from everything.”
He had made the finest offer he knew how to make.
And on his side of time, his side of the century, how could he know how unattractive the offer was? For Annie wanted to be like Bridget, and see the world, and make her own way and take her own risks. Every choice made for her? It was right for Harriett, but it would never be right for Annie.
“No, Strat. I love you. And I care about Harriett and Devonny and all that they are or could be. So I’m going.”
Her tears slipped down her cheeks, and he kissed them, as if he could kiss away the desperation they shared. And then, hesitating still, he kissed her lips. She knew that she would never have such a kiss again, in his world or in hers. It was a kiss of love, a kiss that tried to keep her, a kiss that tried so hard to seal a bargain she could not make.
A kiss in which she knew she would never meet a finer man.
Miss Bartten had this same moment, thought Annie, this fraction in Time where she could have said, No, we’re stopping, I won’t be the woman who hurts others.
Oh, Strat, you are a good man. And I know you will be good to Harriett, who needs you.
Annie, who had wanted that kiss the most, and dreamed of it most, was the one to stop the kiss.
“I need something of yours to take with me,” she told him, sobbing. Her tears were unbearable to him, and he pulled out his handkerchief, a great linen square with his initials fatly embroidered in one corner. It was enough. She had this of Strat, and could leave.
“I’m going,” she said to Strat, and knew that she did control at least some of Time. She was a Century Changer, and in her were powers given to very few. I love you, Strat, said her heart.
“No!” he cried.
The last sound she heard from Strat’s side of Time was his howl of grief, and the last thing she felt were his strong fingers, not half so strong as Time.
Her heart fell first, going without her, stripped and in pain, the loss of Strat like the end of the world.
She was a leaf in a tornado, ripped so badly she could not believe she would emerge alive.
The spinning was deeper and more horrific than the other times. There were faces in it with her: terrible, unknown, screaming faces of others being wrenched through Time.
I am not the only changer of centuries. And they are all as terrified and powerless as I.
Her mind was blown away like the rest of her.
It learned only one thing, as it was thrown, and that was even more frightening than leaving her heart with Strat.
She was going down. Home was up. Home was future years, not past years! Down through Time? Was she going to some other century?
Home! She had meant to go home.
My family—my friends—my life—
The handkerchief was ripped from her hand. Wherever she went, whenever she landed, she would have nothing of Strat.
Strat! she screamed, but soundlessly, for the race of Time did not allow speech. Her tears were raked from her face as if by the tines of forks.
It ended.
The falling had completed itself.
She was still standing.
She was not even dizzy.
She stood very still, not ready to open her eyes, because once her eyes were open, the terrible unknown would be not where she was, but when she was.
Would it be the gift of adventure to do it again? To visit yet another century? Or would it be a terrible punishment?
Why was any of it happening, and why to Annie Lockwood?
When did she really want to find herself?
She thought of Strat and Harriett, of Devonny, Florinda, and Bridget … and again of Strat. Will I ever know what happened to them?
She thought of her mother and father, brother and boyfriend, school and girlfriends. I have to know what happens to them!
She opened her eyes to see when, and what, came next.
OUT OF TIME
Annie Lockwood had not forgotten about Strat, of course. But she had forgotten about him this morning. She woke up fast, and was out of bed in seconds, standing in front of her closet and changing every fashion decision she had made yesterday.
Her American history class was off to New York City today. Forty minutes by train. Since they were going to the United Nations first, the teacher wanted them to look decent, by which he meant that the girls were not to follow the current fad of wearing men’s boxer shorts on the outside of their ripped jeans and the boys were not to follow the current fad of wearing T-shirts so obscene that strangers would ask what town the class was from, so as to be sure they never accidentally went and lived there.
Actually, it was nice to have an excuse to look good. Grunge had hit the school system hard, and those who preferred pretty, or even clean, were out of the loop.
Annie had a long, dark blue dress, a clinging knit bought for a special occasion. It didn’t stand out from the crowd, but Annie did when she wore it. She put on the hat she’d found at the secondhand store. It was a flattened bulb of blue velvet. How jauntily it perched over her straight dark hair. Perfect. (Unless she lost her courage and decided the hat, any hat, especially this hat, was pathetic.)
She whipped downstairs to get her brother’s opinion. Tod generally did not bother with words. If he despised her clothes, he would gag or pretend to pass out, or maybe even threaten her with butter throwing. (Butter left out on the counter made a wonderful weapon, especially if it got in your sister’s hair.) If Tod liked
her outfit, though, he would shrug with his eyebrows. This was a great accolade, and meant she looked okay, even if she was his sister.
She was kind of fond of Tod, which was a good thing, since they were the only people left in their family.
Annie and Tod hadn’t bothered with breakfast since Mom had left. Breakfast was only worth having if somebody else made it for you.
The house was literally colder without Mom, because Mom had always gotten up way earlier and turned up the thermostat, so when Annie and Tod came down to the kitchen, it was toasty and welcoming. Even though Mom’s commute to New York meant she’d caught her train before Annie and Tod came down, they always used to feel Mom in the house. They could smell coffee she had perked and hot perfumed moisture from her shower. Orange juice was always poured, cereal and milk out, toast sitting in the slots waiting to be lowered. On the fridge was always a Post-it to each child:
ANNIE—ace that history test, love you, Mom.
TOD—don’t forget your permission slip, love you, Mom.
But “always” was over.
In the kitchen (where the front of the refrigerator was bare) her brother was drinking orange juice straight from the carton. Since she was doing the same thing these days, Annie could hardly yell at him. She just waited her turn. He smiled, orange juice pouring into his mouth, which caused some to dribble onto the linoleum.
“Nice manners,” said Annie, and the word manners triggered a rush of memories. There were too many, she didn’t want this—
Her head split open. Time came in, with its black and shrieking wind.
There were others in the black wind with her. Half people. Bodies and souls flying through Time. But not me! cried Annie, without sound. I learned my lesson—you taught me! Just because you can go through Time doesn’t mean you should.
Time let go.
She was just a panting girl in a cold room.
“Wow,” said her brother, folding the carton tips together before handing over the orange juice, as if this were a germ protection device. “That was so weird, Annie.”
“What was?” She did not know how she could talk. Oxygen had been ripped from her lungs.
“Your hair,” he said nervously. “It curled by itself.”
For a moment their eyes met, his full of questions and hers full of secrets. “Do you like my hat?” she said, because hair curled by Time was a tough subject.
“Yeah. Makes you look like a deranged fashion model.”
Deranged. What if Tod was right? What if she was on some grim and teetery edge, and she was going to fall off her own sanity? What if she landed, not in another century like the last time, but in some other, hideously confused, mind?
Annie ran back upstairs, to get away from the collapse of Time and the sharp eyes of her brother. To get closer to Strat.
The image of Strat had faded over the months. When she thought of him now, it was loosely, like silver bracelets sliding on her arms.
Sometimes she went to Stratton Point, alone with the wind, but even Strat’s mansion was only memory. Torn down. Nothing now but a scar on a hill. Annie would make sure there was no living person around—no footprints in the snow—no ski tracks—no cars parked below with the windows rolled down—and she’d shout out loud, “Strat! Strat! I love you!”
But of course nobody answered, and Time did not open. There was just a teenage girl shrieking for a nonexistent teenage boy.
This morning, in her bedroom, there was nothing wrong, nothing out of place. No clues to Time or any other secret. Piles of clothing, paperbacks, and CDs were right where she had left them, her drawers half open and her closet doors half shut. But today must be the day! thought Annie. That falling was Time’s warning.
“Hi, Strat,” she whispered to the mirror, as if he and his century were right behind the glass, and the opening of Time was ready.
The Strattons, she thought suddenly, had a Manhattan town house. I’ve been going to their beach mansion—their Connecticut summer place. But what if the passage back through Time is in New York City?
Old New York rose as vividly in her mind as if she really had visited there: romantic and dark, full of velvet gowns and stamping horses and fine carriages.
She stared at herself in her full-length mirror. If Time takes me, I’ll be ready. I’ll be elegant and ladylike.
Of course, not in front of her history class. They must not ask questions. She stuffed the hat into her old L.L. Bean bookbag.
It was midwinter. February, to be exact, and the snowiest winter on record. Annie could wear her best boots (best in fashion, not in staying dry), which were high black leather with chevrons of velvet. She dashed into Mom’s room to filch Mom’s black kid gloves and her winter coat pin: a snowflake of silver, intricate as lace. Mom had ordered it from a museum catalog, which triggered such a flow of catalogs they threatened to snap the mailbox. (Tod loved this; he was always hoping for another, more explicit, Victoria’s Secret.)
Annie had other secrets in mind. The secrets that the Strattons had carried through Time.
How many hours had Annie spent in the library since she and Strat parted forever? Combing yellow newspapers stacked in crumbling towers in the basement? Studying church records and town ledgers, hungry for a syllable about the Strattons?
Old newspapers covered Society, and the Strattons had been Society a hundred years ago. “Mr. Hiram Stratton, Jr., will soon begin his first year at Yale.” “Miss Devonny Stratton will be voyaging to Paris.” “Miss Harriett Ranleigh is again visiting her dear friends, the Strattons.” “Mr. Walker Walkley has accepted the invitation of the Strattons to sail for several days on the family yacht.”
This was proof that the Strattons were real: that Annie Lockwood really and truly had lived and loved among them.
And then, they ceased to be real. The Strattons vanished from the printed record. There was nothing written about them again. Not ever.
No marriage. No birth. No death. No property sold. No visitors mentioned.
The Strattons stepped off Time, leaving no tombstones, no letters and no clues.
Had Annie done that? Had she destroyed the Strattons by coming through Time and changing their lives?
What had happened to them? Where had they gone? Who had married whom?
She would never know—unless she fell through Time again and caught up.
Downstairs in the front hall, she took her mother’s long formal black wool coat from its hanger. She pinned the silver snowflake on the narrow lapel. Carefully, using the violet-trimmed paper Mom kept by the hall phone, Annie wrote a note to the history teacher.
Everything in the note was a lie.
Tod was putting on his ice hockey jacket, which he never zipped no matter how cold it was. Tod tapped his sister’s silver snowflake. “You think it’s Halloween, maybe? You’re going as a grown-up?”
“Do I look weird?” she asked anxiously. No matter what century you were in, nothing was worse than being a fashion jerk.
“You look great,” said her brother gravely. Tod—who never gave compliments; it was one of the principles he lived by. “But it’s a pretty dressy outfit,” said Tod, very casually, “for a school field trip.”
This was the tricky part for Annie. Tod would still be here and would still have to face reality. Annie was sick of reality. Especially Lockwood family reality. “Tod,” she said, even more casually, “if I don’t come home tonight … don’t tell Dad.”
Annie was suddenly deeply terrified. What if I get trapped in Time? she thought. What if Time takes me someplace else, instead of to Strat? What if he and Harriett are already married? What if they aren’t?
Tod zipped his hockey jacket, which astonished her. The sound of the zipper closing was ominous, as if she were being closed out of her brother’s life. “I just wonder, Annie, if you know what you’re doing.”
I have no idea what I am doing. Time will do it to me.
“I don’t want to be a one-person family,” said her brot
her.
“We’re still a family,” she said quickly. “Just scattered.”
Last year, Dad had decided he had better things to do than maintain a family. He had become involved with Miss Bartten. When Mom fell apart over this, Dad said grumpily, “I’m not going to marry her. I’m not even asking for a divorce. I just want a different lifestyle.”
Mom had not taken this well, especially when Dad thought he could have a different lifestyle but still bring Mom his laundry. Talk about la-la land. Dad was actually surprised when Mom destroyed his wardrobe. “By the way,” Mom had said, talking over a sea of buttons no longer attached to shirts, “my brokerage firm is opening an office in Tokyo.”
“Neat,” Dad had said, clearly wondering if his credit cards were maxed out or if he could afford all new clothes. Sleeves were now being ripped off to join the buttons.
“They’ve asked me to go Japan for a month to set things up.”
“Congratulations,” Dad had said. There was no point in hoping Miss Bartten would mend those torn clothes. The Miss Barttens of this world are not domestic.
Mom raised her voice, trying to tap into Dad’s consciousness. “So you need to move back into this house full time for the month of February and take care of Annie and Tod while I’m in Tokyo.”
“Sure,” Dad said, and escaped from the house with his body intact, if not his clothing.
Annie and Tod knew their father had not been listening. He hadn’t heard the word Tokyo or the word Japan and he definitely had not heard the sentence requiring him to live at home again for a month. Brother and sister had looked at each other with perfect understanding: they were about to be on their own for four weeks.
So Annie didn’t want to think about Tod left all alone here. Not that he wasn’t mature enough. He had his driver’s license, and all, but still—he would be alone. And neither parent realized it.
I should confess, thought Annie, so that if something does happen, Tod will know. He deserves answers. If something does happen … like what? What do I think will go wrong? If Time takes me again, I’ll be going to Strat. Won’t I? He loved me so! Doesn’t love conquer all? Or have I been lying about what really happened in 1895? I lie to everybody else. Am I lying to myself now too?
The Time Travelers: Volume One Page 16
