The Time Travelers: Volume One

by Caroline B. Cooney

  “Safe journey,” said Strat quietly. “I thank you for saving me and giving me that hour with Harriett.”

  She hugged him, and he hugged back, so tightly, and for a long time. There was a strange finality to that touch. As complete as doors shutting, or seasons ending.

  It was forever.

  “I love you, too, Annie,” he said, “and I always will.” It was the last thing he ever said to her, and then he drove away in the cutter, he and his dark horses vanishing into the trees.

  The father of Tod and Annie parked his car in the only shoveled parking area at the former Stratton estate.

  The town had owned the place for many years. It had beaches, tennis courts and marinas, holly gardens and meadows for picnics.

  In February it had the sad abandoned look of all New England halfway through winter. It looked, in fact, like his family. Strange and cold and separated.

  There was something frightening about the picnic tables stacked behind the barns, tilted on their sides like huge wooden playing cards. The drinking fountains were wrapped in canvas. The snow-covered foundations of the old Stratton mansion were nothing but knobs under dirty snow. The little pond, where once Hiram Stratton had docked a yacht, was too salty to ice over, but it had the dingy crust of winter by the sea, rolled-up tissues of slush.

  He was afraid to tell anybody that he was such a lousy parent, he didn’t even know when his daughter had disappeared.

  The fact that she had done this twice last year would work in his favor. They would say that Annie was bad: a runaway, incorrigible, worthless—a typical teenager.

  He tried to decide what kind of parent he was. Bad? Incorrigible? Worthless? Typical?

  He had come to Stratton Point as if he could find a clue in the spot where his daughter disappeared before. He found nothing but cold.

  What’ll I do? thought Mr. Lockwood. Call the police?

  He wanted his wife. It had been a long time since he had felt that way.

  Well, he was too little, too late. If he called her in Tokyo and said, Guess what? I have no idea where our daughter is and no idea when she left … No, this did not have the sound of apologies that put marriages back together.

  “No, Mr. Walkley,” said the village attorney calmly.

  “Miss Harriett Ranleigh did not leave her fortune to some ragged logger or some foul nurse. She willed her fortune to the Fresh Air Fund.”

  “What!” shouted Walk. “That liberal idiocy? City people who cannot be bothered to raise their own children properly? Immigrants and guttersnipes who expect their neighbors to do it for them? Disgusting little urchins with bad teeth and no morals?”

  Both Dr. Wilmott and Walker Walkley were beside themselves. Money belonged to people who had money; it must never belong to people who did not. Walk smacked his palm with the side of his beaver hat. Doctor pounded his fist on the top of a high leather chair.

  The attorney, some hack from the North, some small-town person who could not possibly know his job, failed to be impressed by the presence of Walk or Doctor. “I will ensure that Miss Ranleigh’s wishes are carried out,” said the attorney calmly. “Now if you will excuse me, gentlemen, I am busy.”

  They did not excuse him. They blocked the attorney’s exit from Harriett’s former sickroom. Already, the room had been scoured. Its next occupant would arrive on tomorrow’s train.

  “Who is this Moss woman?” shouted Walk. “I demand to see the viper who turned Harriett Ranleigh to this insanity.”

  Two servants cowered by the stove. Their exit, too, was blocked by Doctor and Walk. One was fat, the other thin. One was properly clad in starched white, the other by her bowed head and pitiful rags was probably a washerwoman.

  “You may not lay a hand upon Moss,” said the attorney.

  But the fat servant turned out to be Moss herself. “Miss Harriett was proud to give her money to the Fresh Air Fund. She said that way she would have the laughter of children every summer.”

  Moss and the attorney looked at each other gladly, but Doctor and Walk looked at the woman in fury. Walk’s skin grew red, his body literally flaming with lost hopes.

  However, Doctor and Mr. Walkley were nothing now except blockades to getting the room ready. Moss was sick of them. “Lockwood,” said Moss, “show Mr. Walkley to a guest room in the main building.”

  “Lockwood?” repeated Walker Walkley.

  “Lockwood?” repeated Dr. Wilmott.

  How they smiled.

  It was very late at night, almost dawn once again, but in the asylum, it was difficult to tell.

  Katie did not look up when the door opened. Hope had dried like a leaf in autumn.

  She could hardly remember autumn now. She had not seen one since she was little, and the stories she told Douglass about autumn sounded unlikely. Could trees really turn bright colors?

  When hands circled her, Katie did not fight back nor question. She was accustomed to pain without explanation.

  The hands stood her up, and a finger was laid on her lips, and now she looked.

  She did not believe what she saw.

  “It’s me,” whispered Strat. “Don’t say a word.”

  In the cacophony of screaming, sobbing, chattering, mindless patients, this was a ridiculous instruction. They both giggled. Their laughter blended into the laughter of hysterics.

  “We’re going to Egypt,” whispered Strat.

  This did not sound any more impossible than trees turning color. “All right,” said Katie.

  “You hold Douglass’s hand. Otherwise he’ll be difficult.”

  Katie held Douglass’s hand. He was not difficult. He made his Strat noises and Katie promised to tell him a story soon. Although it was Strat’s story that would be interesting.

  Strat had simply unlocked the doors, knowing exactly where the attendants would be sleeping, for none stayed awake through the night. A patient who needed help in the middle of the night waited till morning. Or waited for days, depending on the mood of the helpers.

  Strat quietly relocked each door behind them. Then they were outdoors.

  Outdoors! Out of the asylum! Beyond the gates!

  Katie felt winter wind, and bitter cold, and icy snow, and it was beautiful.

  Two horses were tied behind black trees, and a sleigh with a cover, so she and Douglass would be toasty and warm and out of the wind. She stared. The black mane blowing in the wind. The scent of horse. The crescent of moon in the sky. The pattern of stars and the crackle of ice.

  Strat boosted her into the carriage. “Clothing,” he said, pointing to a small leather trunk. “I want you to look lovely.”

  I hardly even met the wind, she thought, as he shut her out of the weather. What other adventures will I have? What else will I meet that I have never met before? “Strat, I may go to Egypt,” said Katie, “but I will never be lovely.”

  “Harriett said your personality would make you lovely,” said Strat. “She said to wear a heavy veil to keep away the gaze of strangers. You will be my sister, Katie, and Douglass, my brother.”

  Harriett’s gowns for Katie, and Charlie’s clothes for Strat and Douglass. He had packed swiftly, and with only Harriett for witness, and then Charlie. Not even Annie knew where he was now.

  “But Strat,” whispered Katie, “people will think ill of you, having a defective brother and sister.”

  “But I will be proud of myself,” said Strat, “and Harriett will be proud of me, and we’ll settle for that.” And Annie? he thought. Annie, whom I could not tell? How will she feel, in her other century, with her other life? Will she honor me? Will she look in her archives? Will she remember my name and wonder about my fate? “And a bath?” whispered Katie. “With hot water?”

  “A bath,” promised Strat. “With hot water.”

  “And roast beef?” said Katie. She did not actually remember roast beef, but Strat had talked about it a lot.

  “Yes, and pie and ice cream.”

  Strat shut the door, and Katie held
Douglass so he would not be afraid. The horses moved, and Katie and Douglass felt wonderful new things: rhythm and speed and bumps. They laughed, and together they touched every new surface and felt every new texture.

  Never had Katie been wanted. Never had she hoped to be all these at once: warm, clean, fed, clothed, and among friends.

  “Thank you, Harriett,” she whispered. “I will honor your name forever.”

  Outside, she thought she heard the howl of a wolf, and she was both thrilled and terrified.

  But it was no wolf, raising its muzzle to the dark sky; it was Strat, like Charlie, without words for his grief. He had lost Harriett to death, and Annie to Time.

  And he had loved her so, but it was his own words that had sent her away forever.

  I had to save Katie, he told Annie, the tears he could not seem to prevent freezing to icicles on his cheeks in the mountain wind. You will be all right wherever you are, but she would not be.

  And I owed her.

  The world owed her, but it was my responsibility.

  But Time did not come for Annie Lockwood.

  She screamed and fought. She broke free of Doctor’s iron grip. She kicked Walk brutally in the shins. She smashed the teacups and even grabbed the boiling pot from the stove to pour on them.

  But she did not get free of them, and Time did not come.

  The attorney and Moss and Mrs. Havers were very distressed. Charlie, outdoors on a chair, his man still putting glass bottles on the stone wall, listened to the commotion.

  Strat, Strat, thought Charlie. You keep doing what you think is best, but behind you, when you’ve shut the door, life chooses its own way. Its own terrible cruel way.

  “You see,” said Dr. Wilmott, “that she truly is insane.”

  “I do see,” said Havers. “What a shame.”

  Annie faced the sky, screaming, “Time! Time! Let me through. Come for me!”

  The sky, of course, remained sky. It did not speak, nor whirl forward in a tornado to whisk her away. They would have laughed at her had it not been so hideous. A lost mind was quite dreadful to witness.

  Mrs. Havers said, “To think I would have hired her to work for me.”

  They all shook their heads sadly at the ways in which this girl had deceived them.

  “Notify police at railroad stations,” said Doctor, “that young Mr. Stratton will be attempting to travel. He is alone, out of money, and wearing clothing far too large for him.” Doctor smiled at Miss Lockwood. “He won’t get far,” he assured her. Doctor said to Walker Walkley, “I shall capture young Stratton. It will be a great pleasure to me. I still nurse a wound and a headache. You must deliver Miss Lockwood to my institution.”

  How they smiled.

  “Indeed,” said Walker Walkley, “it will be even more of a pleasure to me.”

  Doctor sped away after Strat, whipping horses as cruelly as he had ever slapped a patient.

  And Walker Walkley turned to Annie Lockwood.

  They strapped her in a terrifying garment: a sort of bag, as if meant for a corpse. Her arms and legs were trapped within, and all the screaming in the world had no effect upon the harsh canvas.

  Is this what Strat endured? she thought. But what Anti-Kidnapping League will come for me? I have no allies. My only ally is Strat, and he has left.

  And Time, Time has left, too.

  She tried praying to Time, like a god; and she tried threatening Time, like a bad boy; and she tried bribing Time, as if she had something Time needed.

  Time ignored her.

  Only the presence of Mrs. Havers and Moss and the attorney kept Walk from hurting her. But soon they would be out of sight of Clear Pond, and then Walker Walkley could do whatever he chose.

  Each time she tried to change centuries, she merely convinced strangers that she was insane.

  Moss, however, remained kind. She brought furs. “These were Miss Harriett’s own,” she said. “She would want to protect this sad creature from the cold. It is twenty below. Mr. Walkley, do take care of the poor thing. Do not let her escape. Death would be swift, in this cold.”

  “And we do not want death to come swiftly, do we?” whispered Walker into Annie’s ear. “We want you to linger, don’t we? We want you to suffer, don’t we?”

  Walk tied her canvas bag to the seat of the cutter and carelessly threw a fur over her. “Think, Miss Lockwood,” he said, “of all the years you will spend in that asylum. And think, too, about Strat, whom you adore. He will join you soon. You will watch each other in Hell.”

  He set off.

  How dare the bells still jingle and the horses still toss their beribboned manes? Annie was being turned into a lunatic, to be treated like an animal, and still there was music and beauty.

  On Clear Pond, soft ice beckoned. If I could get Walk out on it! thought Annie. “Going over the pond would be a shortcut,” she said, but she was too obvious, and Walk burst out laughing.

  “Do you think I cannot tell that they have been cutting ice?” He shook his head at her dumbness.

  The sleigh curved toward the steep hill that would take them away from cure cottages and toward Evergreen. The slope was covered with hay to slow the vehicle so it would not catch up to the horses and break their ankles from behind. Annie thought of what Walk and Doctor would do to her. Would they break her ankles from behind?

  I am a twentieth-century toughie. I am not Harriett in a decline. I can escape.

  Oh yeah? How?

  She tried to think herself through Time, to hurl her body out of its bonds and across the decades, but nothing happened. She lurched against the bonds, but nothing happened. She screamed one more time, but nothing happened.

  Walk flicked the reins and laughed.

  She was his property.

  She stared again at the wide, wide ice. Suppose she got free and ran across the pond. Would it hold her weight? Could she get to some sort of safety? And what if she fell through the ice? Would she freeze as she sank, becoming an ice coffin of herself? Or could she make herself fall through Time, instead?

  Everything was so real. Too real.

  The rough canvas.

  The bitter wind.

  She thought of the horrors in the lunatic asylum that Strat had described to her. No. Not me. She had not realized that she had mouthed the words until Walk laughed again, and shouted, “Yes! You!” He yanked the fur rug away from her, leaving her with nothing but canvas, at twenty below zero.

  Then he half stood, adjusting Harriett’s fur around himself instead of around Annie. It was a trophy. And she, she, too, was a trophy: proof that if he had lost fortunes, he had at least captured a victim.

  Charlie said to his man, “I really am an excellent shot.” He took the rifle and turned slightly in his chair.

  He said to dead Harriett, whose heart and goodness he still cherished, “I would have preferred to shoot Strat, my dear. But he did have an excuse. I had to accept his excuse, Harriett. Certainly you accepted his excuse. And I cannot let your Miss Lockwood suffer simply because Walker Walkley’s greed was not satisfied.”

  Charlie pulled the trigger.

  He really was an excellent shot.

  He said to his man, “Go after the sleigh. Dump Mr. Walkley’s body through the soft ice and free Miss Lockwood.”

  Charlie’s man said, “Sir?” He was very nervous. Very pale. Understandable. He had never before been employed by a murderer.

  “Yes?” said Charlie. He desperately needed to lie down. His lungs would not accept this sort of activity. He was going to follow Harriett very soon. If only he could be assured that he would find her there, wherever death lay.

  “Miss Lockwood is gone.”

  “What do you mean?” said Charlie.

  “I don’t know, sir,” said his servant. “I released her from the restraints, and she gave me—sir, I did nothing to encourage it—she gave me a kiss and a hug. And then, sir, she was there … and then she wasn’t.”

  Charlie was too tired to answer. To
o tired to stay awake. So Harriett was right about that too. The Lockwood girl could travel through Time.

  He wondered if death could be that easy. A shift through Time.

  If so, Harriett, he said to her in his heart, I’m coming.

  The fall was terrible, terrible.

  The spinning was deeper and more horrific. There were faces in it with her: hideous, 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 across like the rest of her. Strat! she screamed, but it was soundless. 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 standing. Not even dizzy.

  The fear of opening her eyes, and finding herself in the wrong place, or the wrong Time, kept her frozen, as if she had been thrown through ice, like Walk, instead of Time.

  Strat, she thought, and the image of him was already distant: framed, like an old photograph on a grandmother’s wall. Oh, Strat, you are the Past. Not the Present.

  “Annie?” said a familiar voice.

  She opened her eyes.

  On the snow pack in front of Annie Lockwood was no cure cottage, no Clear Pond, no Walker Walkley, no horse and no sleigh.

  Her own father stood before her, snow falling on his down jacket, the cute vibrant one he got to go skiing with his cute vibrant girlfriend.

  Annie and her father stared at each other. She had no idea what story to make up, or what emotion to display. She had no idea what story she had just left, or what emotions she had been carrying.

  It was just gone.

  Strat and Devonny, Harriett and Moss—they were history now. And would she find Strat in archives? Would Egypt have his name?

  He has my lock of hair, she thought, but I have nothing of him. Why didn’t I take something of Strat? What will I have for the rest of my life?