Time's Edge

by Rysa Walker

  “I don’t blame you, but it wouldn’t have mattered. She can barely use the equipment at all now. I don’t know if it’s the tumor or the medications, but I saw her hurl one of the diaries across the room the other day, because she couldn’t get it to scroll.” He leans forward and says in a lower tone, “If you mention this to Katherine, I will totally deny I said it. I’ll flat out lie, because she needs to feel someone is in her corner right now. But I don’t think we can count on her to make decisions at this point.”

  I cross my arms and look down at the floor. “Okay. Understood. I’ll just get back to—”

  “Kate, wait a minute, okay? I saw you this morning in the kitchen, and I was here when Harry talked to Katherine today. I get it. I do. This is just a god-awful situation for everyone and—”

  “And I’m the only one who can do anything about it.”

  He nods. “It sucks, but yeah. That pretty much sums it up. No pressure, right?”

  I give him a halfhearted smile. “So, since Katherine isn’t a reliable resource right now, what can you tell me about these Koreshan guys? Do you know why the dates are different?”

  “Well, Saul isn’t Koresh, and he isn’t the half dozen or so other cult leaders whose followers he, um . . . appropriated? But we do know he sank a lot of resources into those groups to lure them into the fold. The dates are probably just different because they had more followers and more money at that point. But I’ll do some research.”

  “Thanks. I’m going to be at Mom’s for the next few days—we don’t have long until she leaves, and I need to spend some time with her. But I’ll put together a tentative list of the order in which I think we need to tackle these jumps while I’m there and talk it over with you, Dad, and Katherine when I get back. Does that work for you?”

  “It does, but I’m wondering why you’re leaving out of the equation the one person who actually has the ability to help you.”

  I don’t follow him at first, and then I realize he means Kiernan. He’s right. Kiernan’s abilities with the key may be somewhat limited, but he’s the only other person who can use it—at least, the only one who’s on our side. And he knows more about what we’ve tried in the past than anyone else, except for Other-Kate, who isn’t exactly available for a question-and-answer session.

  I pause a little too long, I guess, because Connor continues. “You think he’s still loyal to the Cyrists?”

  “No. Absolutely not.” I think back to Kiernan’s expression at the cabin on the Wooded Island, after he saved me from the hotel, when I asked if he was still in this fight. “He hates them as much as anyone. It’s just—it’s hard for him to jump very far out of his timeline. He said it drains him and . . .”

  “Hard, but not impossible for a short time.” Connor gives me a long, searching look. “That’s what you said before, right? Is there some other reason you’re keeping him at a distance?”

  I sigh and pull my knees into the chair. “Kiernan wants to help. But . . . it feels like I’m rubbing salt in a wound. I don’t want to make it worse or to . . . encourage him, I guess? He’s been hurt enough. When he looks at me—”

  “He’s an adult, Kate. If he hates Saul and the Cyrists as much as you say, shouldn’t you let him make that decision?”

  “I don’t want to hurt him. I already feel like I owe him so much, and I have nothing to give back. I’m just a reminder of what he’s lost.”

  Connor shakes his head. “The only valid reason to keep him at a distance on this is if, deep down, you really don’t trust him.”

  “It’s not a question of trust, Connor.”

  Unless, says this teeny-tiny voice in the back of my head, you don’t entirely trust yourself?

  ∞6∞

  BOSTON

  July 25, 1905, 11:35 a.m.

  Kiernan sleeps with his head on one arm, his body curled around a pillow. I watch him for a moment, and then a shiver runs through me as I imagine how I’d feel if I discovered someone was, without my knowledge, watching me while I slept. But why is he still asleep at ten in the morning? I thought people were all early to bed, early to rise in 1905. Apparently not Kiernan.

  It also occurs to me that I have no clue what he sleeps in. Or doesn’t sleep in. And he could throw those covers off at any second. So I jump ahead to noon, only to discover an empty room. I work my way backward in five-minute increments and finally hit the jackpot at 11:35. He’s awake and sitting on the bed, in black pants and a long-sleeved white shirt, buttoned up to the neck. A thin black strip of cloth—a tie of some sort, maybe?—hangs down around his collar on both sides.

  He got a haircut, and it really looks better long. Not that it’s any of my business, of course. I take a deep breath and then blink to lock in the destination.

  As always, his face lights up when he sees me. “Kate! It’s Thursday. I thought you were coming on Saturday?”

  “Oh. No. I mean, yes, I am.” I’d actually kind of forgotten about Saturday, which I suspect would hurt his feelings. Hopefully, if I just barrel ahead, I’ll outrun his uncanny knack for reading every expression that crosses my face. “This is something else. I was going to ask for your advice about a couple of jumps, but I can see you have plans. I’ll just come back later.”

  “I’m heading out to work, yes. But I can just as easily go tomorrow. What’s up?”

  “No, that’s okay. I’d hate to make you miss a day of work.”

  He laughs. “I don’t plan to miss a day of work. I’ll go to today’s work tomorrow. Or the day after.”

  I glare at him, because he’s clearly enjoying messing with my head. I really should be getting a handle on this whole temporal-relativity thing, however, after the past few days. The cancer may limit the time Katherine has left, but as long as I don’t screw with my memories by having two versions of myself in the same place at the same time, there’s nothing to stop me from doubling and tripling up if needed. All told, I’ve put in about a hundred hours of research and an additional thirty hours spending time with Mom, running errands for her and so forth in preparation for her trip to Italy.

  “Okay,” I say, sitting on the side of his bed. “I’ve spent the last . . . I don’t know, but it feels like a century . . . watching the diary entries and going through Katherine’s notes. We’re going to have a meeting about it tomorrow, and I think it would help if you were there.”

  “So, it’s been what . . . a week since you were here?”

  “The calendar says six days, but I did most of those hours two or three times.”

  “What happened to your decision to take things slow? To wait until you—as you put it—know the hell what you’re doing?”

  “Partly Katherine. But mostly me realizing I’ll probably never know the hell what I’m doing.” It was intended as a joke. A lame one, admittedly, but Kiernan either doesn’t get it or doesn’t think it’s funny, because his eyes are somber, still locked on my face.

  “Can you tell me what you remember about two trips discussed in the diary?” I ask. “The first is to 1902. You’ve talked about the Cyrist Farm on a number of occasions, but where was it?”

  “There’s more than one. I was at a farm in Illinois just before you and I met at the Expo, back when that place was the headquarters. That farm still exists, but most of us had moved down to Estero by 1902—”

  “That’s in Florida, right? And that’s where you met Other-Kate?”

  “Yeah. She was nosing around Nuevo Reino—well, that’s not what it was called back then, but it’s what they call it later. Cyrist International is still officially headquartered in DC, but Saul has been in the Miami area since shortly after he landed in 2024. Only a few people know exactly where, because he moves around, but he has a house there.”

  I make a mental note to let Katherine and Connor know the actual year Saul landed and then get to the main point. “So, here’s the thing. Katherine says the Koreshans aren’t the same as the Cyrists. That they were around before Saul. But everything I’m seeing�
��”

  “Katherine’s sort of right and sort of wrong. The Koreshans definitely existed. They were an odd little group that thought the universe was a hollow sphere, with Earth in the center, based on some visions that Cyrus Teed had after getting the bloody hell shocked out of him during a scientific experiment in his basement. He said this beautiful woman came to him and told him he would lead his followers to salvation and eternal life by building this new community. He renamed himself Koresh and developed plans for a place he called New Jerusalem that would one day hold ten million people, or so he claimed. He was pretty forward thinking on some things—believed women should have the vote, for example, and that God was both male and female. That’s probably one reason that he attracted a lot of followers, especially women, and they were happy to turn over their money to help him build this new paradise.

  “When Teed died in 1908, he said he’d be reincarnated or resurrected. It was all built up around this idea of communal purity. If men and women lived together in pure—that is, sex-free—harmony, they’d become immortal. Cyrus died three days before Christmas, so they all thought he’d rise up on Christmas Day. His followers just put him in a bathtub and waited. In the pre-Saul timeline, I think the county eventually came in and made them bury him.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “I read about that in an old religious history text in Katherine’s library. The group gradually died out after realizing Koresh wasn’t coming back.”

  He nods. “Which is how most of these groups end. In this case, they decided if God didn’t resurrect Koresh himself, the very foundation of their faith, what hope did his lowly followers have?”

  “But the records show Cyrist International was founded back in the 1400s, right? So . . . why take over this group in the early 1900s?”

  “Sometimes it’s easier to just change the historical record, rather than changing history itself. The date you’ll usually see for Cyrist International—I should know this—1470 something . . .”

  “It’s 1478.”

  “Yeah, well the only thing that happened in 1478 is that Prudence, or maybe it was Simon, went back and paid this guy William Caxton, who was the first person in England with a printing press, to print up some copies of the Book of Cyrus. A few years later, they do the same for the Book of Prophecy. Then, they make sure those books end up in a few archives. The B of P included accounts of so-called miracles Cyrus would perform later—in a couple of cases, it even gives a rough idea of the dates. And there’s lots of predictions in there too, things that shouldn’t’ve been known when the book was printed. As those dates roll past and predictions come true, folks start thinking maybe this Cyrus guy was the real deal.”

  “So the miracles—are those the cures that Katherine mentioned? Things Saul did before he blew up CHRONOS headquarters?”

  “Yeah. And the prophecies start attracting believers kind of like that Nostradamus guy, except the B of P doesn’t leave as much room for interpretation. So, with the Koreshans and a handful of other groups, all Saul did is cash in on an opportunity. He invested enough money in Cyrus Teed’s little commune to push the plans for the move to Estero forward by about six years. And he had Prudence orchestrate several so-called visions, convincing Teed to give up this silly Hollow Earth idea and some other views Saul thought were bunk. And in these visions, Prudence tells Teed that she’s his future female incarnation, which he probably thought was a pretty sweet upgrade. She even shows up as a vision to a few of the other Koreshan leaders. Then, Teed dies.”

  “Only it’s now in 1901 instead of 1908, right?”

  “Yeah. I suspect his death wasn’t entirely accidental in either timeline, but Saul pushed it forward seven years. Then, the true believers pile him into the tub, and—”

  “Did these people actually think Teed was going to rise up out of that tub after being dead for several days? How could anyone possibly take those claims seriously? Especially when he was spouting all of that Hollow Earth nonsense.”

  Kiernan starts to say something and then stops, just staring at me for a minute, like he’s weighing something pro and con. Finally, he says, “We need to go on a field trip.”

  “What? No!”

  “Some things you have to see, love. Me telling you is a poor substitute.” He gets up and goes behind the red curtain tacked up in the opposite corner.

  “No,” I say and start to follow him. Then I remember what he said about dressing and undressing behind the curtain and sit back down. “This is a very bad idea, Kiernan. I’m not going anywhere, so you might as well leave on your waiter or maître d’ uniform or whatever it is.”

  “Not a waiter. Not a maître d’. If you want to know what I do out at Norumbega, you’ll just have to come see on Saturday.”

  “I already said I would, and I will. But I’m not going to this Nuevo . . . whatever you called it.”

  He comes out from behind the curtain, tucking the ends of a tan shirt into a pair of brown pants. He gives my clothes a quick scan and shakes his head, apparently dissatisfied with my shorts and tank top. “I’d say to just go in that, since no one will see you, but you’ll freeze.”

  “Kiernan, I’m serious. I’m not going.”

  “Safe, Kate. It’s totally safe.” He crouches on the floor in front of me and starts to pry up the loose board under his bed.

  “You can’t know that. What if someone sees us?”

  He pulls out the cloth bag that contains my dress and shoes and puts it in my lap.

  “I lived on that farm, Kate. I worked in that stable most days. I know every nook and cranny, every hiding place, because I put all of them to good use. And . . .” He lets out a breath. “We were there in the other timeline. We watched from the loft. No one saw us then; no one will see us now.”

  “But that means we’ll run into you, so—”

  He shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter that I remember being there with my Kate—although I do remember it vividly. New timeline means if you’re not there, I wasn’t either. You and I will be the only two souls in that loft.”

  “Ri-i-ght. But . . .”

  He gives me a sly smile. “Isn’t there any way you trust me? I swear on the soul of my father, Durango Montoya—”

  “Stop it.” I glare at him. “First, it’s Domingo Montoya. And second . . .”

  “Second?” he asks when I don’t finish the sentence.

  Second, you’re not the person I want quoting “The Princess Bride” to me. But it would hurt him for me to say that, and I don’t want to hurt him. It’s perfectly natural that Other-Kate shared the things she loved with Kiernan. Just as I did with Trey. And it isn’t fair to hold that against him.

  “I don’t need a second reason,” I say, forcing a smile. “The first is enough to count twice.”

  He’s giving me that searching look again, like he’s reading my face for hidden clues. He gives up after a few seconds and just stares down at the floor. “Do you honestly think I would ever put you in danger, Kate?”

  “No. I know you wouldn’t. If you didn’t believe it was relatively safe, you wouldn’t suggest it. But even if there’s only a teeny, tiny, infinitesimal risk, is it worth it just for a bit of amusement?”

  His eyebrows shoot upward. “You think this is for pleasure? Oh, God—no. You’re not going to enjoy this one bit. Neither will I.” He takes my hand and looks up at me. “Can you please just trust me on this one? You need to see this. You need to see firsthand the type of resistance we will face.”

  ESTERO, FLORIDA

  December 24, 1901, 11:50 p.m.

  News flash: the Sunshine State can be freaking cold on a windy December night. The 1905 dress covers almost every inch of skin above the ankle, but it’s thin, and I immediately feel the wind cutting through the fabric. Kiernan told me to crouch low prior to the jump, so the first things I see when I open my eyes are the wooden slats of the floor beneath my feet. Pale yellow light seeps through the spaces between the boards, diffused by a thin layer of straw. Several y
ards away I see the dimly lit walls of the stable below us. Someone is playing a violin. After a few notes, I recognize the song—“O Holy Night.”

  I quickly drop the CHRONOS key into a leather pouch Kiernan gave me and pull the drawstring to close it, tucking the bundle down the front of my shirt. Kiernan is crouched a few feet to my right. He looks at the hay bales on both sides of us, and then he motions for me to follow. I creep toward him, and we inch forward about three yards to the right, squeezing through an opening between the bales of hay. I crawl into the far corner, and Kiernan sits with his back against the hay so that he can watch the ladder.

  There’s a window in front of me, and a tiny sliver of moon hangs in the sky, nearly obscured by the clouds. I’m quickly discovering why people say “drafty as a barn,” because the wind whistles around us, and the chill cuts clear to the bone. I pull my arms around my legs and tuck the edges of my skirt underneath me. Kiernan reaches behind the closest bale of hay and pulls out a blanket, which he unfolds and wraps around us. It is a bit musty but wonderfully thick. This seems an odd place for a blanket, however, and how did he know it was there? I give him a little nudge with my elbow, and when he looks at me, I flick my eyes down to the blanket, then back up to him, one eyebrow raised in question.

  “It’s . . . I’ve spent some time up here, okay?” he whispers, seeming embarrassed. “The view is a little clearer over to the left of the ladder, but I knew you’d need the blanket.”

  I decide not to press the point and definitely not to think about who else might have been under this blanket. It’s bad enough to visualize Kiernan with my other self. I most certainly don’t want a mental image of him up here with Prudence.

  The stable below us appears fairly ordinary, but this is based entirely on secondhand experience from stables I’ve seen in movies or on TV. There’s a line of stalls along one wall and a large, open space in the middle, punctuated every twenty feet or so by a vertical support beam. It looks like there might be stalls on this side of the building as well, but I can’t tell from where we’re sitting. Farm implements and horse gear—saddles, bridles, and such—hang from one wall, along with a shelf that holds tongs and some odd-looking tools. Straw covers the ground, and most of the stable is at least partially hidden in the shadows.