Time's Edge

by Rysa Walker

  “Your dating-an-older-woman warning from last night came true a lot quicker than I’d imagined.” Trey takes my glasses off and looks through the clear plastic lenses, then kisses me before putting them back on my nose.

  “Hopefully this will keep anyone from mistaking me for Prudence and falling down to worship at my feet.”

  “Good. Can’t have them stealing my job.”

  I roll my eyes. “Seriously, Trey, how many hours a day do you spend thinking those up?”

  “Is it my fault if you keep feeding me straight lines?”

  He follows me into the living room, which is uncharacteristically neat now that Mom and I aren’t in here on a regular basis to clutter it up with books, papers, and assorted junk. “You want something to drink? I swiped some sodas from Katherine’s fridge. And some of Dad’s energy drinks. Or I can make coffee, but we threw out the milk before Mom left.”

  “A soda is fine.”

  Trey is standing in front of the fireplace, looking at the pictures on the mantle, when I come back with the drinks. He’s holding a framed photo of me when I was about six. I’m sitting on the front stoop of the apartment we lived in on campus for a few years while Mom was finishing up her degree, and I’m wearing a pair of hot-pink Supergirl roller skates. Both knees are bandaged, but I’m grinning from ear to ear, clearly displaying the gap where my two front teeth are growing in. “Cute,” he says. “I’m going to need a copy of that.”

  “I’ll get right on it.” I hand him his drink and put the picture back on the mantle. We sit down on the sofa, and he puts one arm around me and then reaches over to pull my legs across his lap. My heart catches in my throat at how easily we fall back into old patterns. How many movies did we watch this way in my room at Katherine’s house?

  “So, I was supposed to meet you at Katherine’s. Why the change of plans?”

  I shrug and take a sip of my Red Bull. “I knew Katherine would have a hissy if you came over during a jump. I don’t know if it’s the tumor or the meds making things worse, but she loses it over the tiniest things now. I didn’t want to set her off about something so easily remedied.”

  “Hey, I’m not complaining. No chaperone, all alone with a beautiful older woman—”

  “Who is getting the dye from her hair all over your T-shirt.”

  “True,” he says, and we both try to brush it away, but it just makes a gray streak against the black.

  I give him a wicked little smile and tug upward at the hem of his shirt. “I know a very obvious solution to this problem.”

  He inhales sharply as I press my lips against his collarbone. “Yes, but that solution is likely to create an entirely different problem.”

  After a long discussion in the car last night, we decided to take things slow and gradually work toward the point we were at last time. While it’s a little frustrating for both of us, I know it’s the right decision.

  A few minutes later, Trey gives me one last kiss, this time on the nose, and says, “You need to get going. Otherwise . . .”

  “Yes. I know.” I chug down the rest of the energy drink, making a face at the end.

  He laughs. “Why drink it if you don’t like it?”

  “It’s bitter, but I need the buzz,” I say, crossing over to the mirror to repair the damage to my hair. Trey follows me and reaches around to put the fake glasses back on.

  “You look very librarian.”

  He’s right. The blue dress falls just below the knee and is probably the frumpiest-looking thing I’ve ever worn, but at least it’s loose enough that I can fight in it if I have to.

  “Personally,” he says, “I prefer the red dress from last night, but I’m guessing it might raise some eyebrows in the thirties. And since you’re going to be hanging out with this other guy instead of me, I give the librarian costume two big thumbs-up.”

  There’s a smile on his face, but it’s not exactly a happy smile. I step toward him, slipping my arms around his neck. “Hey, I’ll only be gone for a minute. Promise.”

  “Yeah, a minute here, but a lot can happen in that minute on the other end.”

  “Well, if it’s any consolation, he’ll hate that my hair is up.”

  “Because of this?” His finger traces the edge of my scar.

  “Partly. He feels guilty, although that’s beyond stupid. I could have died. But even before the scar, he said I don’t look like his Kate when my hair is up.”

  “Then you should wear it up all the time.” He makes a face and shakes his head. “That came out all jealous-boyfriend, didn’t it? And while that’s kind of true, what I meant to say is hair up, hair down, doesn’t matter. You’re my Kate, either way.”

  I offer to set a stable point in the living room, since the current one is in my room and Trey is likely to crack his head on my sloped ceiling. But he wants to see my room anyway, so he follows me up the stairs and stretches out on the twin bed, propping his feet on the headboard.

  “I like your room,” he says as I sit on the edge of the bed beside him. “The skylight, the glow-in-the-dark stars. They’re very you.”

  I laugh. “Thanks, I think. Charlayne used to say the skylight spooked her. She felt like someone was going to jump through it and land on top of her. But I miss it when I’m not here. It’s my built-in night-light.”

  I remove my CHRONOS key from the little leather pouch. Trey reaches over and touches the medallion, running his fingers over the hourglass in the middle.

  “It looks so ordinary. Hard to believe it’s going to yank you all the way to Georgia and nearly a century back in time.”

  First it will be yanking me back to Katherine’s so that I can meet up with Kiernan, and then we’ll be going to Georgia. But this is confusing enough as it is, so I just smile.

  “I think the skeptic needs a demonstration.” I lean over and give him a quick goodbye kiss and then set this spot as a local stable point.

  Trey, who of course can’t see the interface my fingers are touching, gives me a crooked grin. “Are you having fun texting on your imaginary phone?”

  I nudge him with my hip. “I’ll be right back—one minute.”

  “Too long.”

  “I could make it thirty seconds.”

  He smiles, settling his head into my pillow. “Better.”

  I’m waiting in the kitchen for Kiernan when Daphne sticks her cold nose into my hand, then runs to the back door, tail swishing. I open the door, and she bounds out over the patio, heading straight for the trees behind the storage shed where the squirrels hang out. I doubt she’d know what to do if she ever caught one, but her endless quest keeps her in shape, despite the fact that everyone in the house is guilty of slipping her too many people-food snacks.

  Katherine is there when I turn around, still in the robe and slippers she was wearing when I came running into the library earlier with the news about Moehler. She seems to have a bit more color in her face than she’s had in the past week or so, although the dark circles are still under her eyes.

  “The past few months have aged both of us, Kate.”

  I raise my eyebrows in question and then remember the gray streaks in my hair. “Oh, right. Does it look okay?”

  She smiles. “You’d never pass inspection with the CHRONOS makeup team, but I think you’ll do. Although a hat would make more sense. Did the cloche I ordered ever come in?”

  It must be clear from my clueless expression that I have absolutely no idea what a cloche is, because she waves me off. “Never mind. I’ll check with Connor. I found it online. A few years out of fashion for 1938, but hey, it’s the Depression. People wore whatever they could find.”

  Katherine pours herself some cranberry juice and sits down in the window seat, pulling her robe tighter around her shoulders. “Care to run the game plan past me?”

  I’ve gone over everything with Connor several times now, but Katherine’s involvement has been confined to the role of indirect advisor. Connor discusses things with her and then comes back w
ith suggestions, and we tweak. Most of the time, she stays in her room. I don’t know if it’s to shield me from her temper or if she’s just feeling too weak to deal with social interaction. While it’s true that she rubs me the wrong way a lot of the time, I miss talking to her, and I doubt she likes being on the sidelines.

  “Sure,” I say, sitting down next to her. “But I’ll have to make it quick. Kiernan will be here soon.”

  “You’re still planning for him to shadow you instead of working as a team?”

  I nod. “It might be an unnecessary precaution, but I’d rather play it safe. Okay—according to the diary, Delia’s group is interviewing the owner of the Morton Theater. I’m not going to talk to them, but I’ll probably follow them when they leave. The goal is mostly to get a feel for the place. Kiernan will set up some stable points around their hotel, or wherever they’re staying, so that he can observe them from the cabin. Hopefully we can figure out a good place and time to approach them.”

  “You look nervous.” Katherine squeezes my hand. “Relax—you’ll do fine.”

  I think I like her new meds. “Any insider tips for Georgia 1938?”

  She laughs. “You can never say sir or ma’am too often. And that goes double if it’s someone in authority.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I say, grinning.

  “Save it for Georgia.” She gives my knee a squeeze and then gets up to let Daphne in. “I’m going to clear out so that you can get going. I’m feeling . . . okay, but my moods are unpredictable, and Kiernan probably already thinks I’m a harpy from hell.” I start to protest, but she holds up her hand. “It’s okay, Kate, really. I need to get Daphne out before Kiernan pops in anyway, or she’ll be nervous all day. Oh, I almost forgot—have you heard from Harry?”

  “Yes. He arrived at the hospital a few hours back. Grandpa’s still in ICU, but he’s stable.”

  “That’s good news. Does Deborah know yet?”

  “I sent her a text.”

  Katherine hesitates and then says, “Connor told me you think Prudence arranged Deborah’s trip. And you’re not worried?”

  “I can’t be certain she arranged the trip. And Kiernan said Pru is very erratic, so I could be wrong about Mom being safe. But I don’t think she holds any of this against her.”

  A shadow passes over Katherine’s face, and I know I’ve just reminded her of exactly who Prudence does blame, so I shift focus. “Mom sounds happy. She’s leaving next week for the first trip to Bosnia, and she’s made friends with a couple of the graduate students who are working with her. And I really do think she may be safer there than she is here.”

  Katherine gives me a tired smile. “You may be right, but that’s a two-edged sword. If Prudence has whisked Deborah thousands of miles away to protect her, that makes me a wee bit concerned about what they might be planning on this side of the Atlantic.”

  SOMEWHERE IN GEORGIA

  Sometime in 1905

  I blink into the location Kiernan set and open my eyes to trees—lots and lots of trees. They seem a bit blurry, however, and I realize it’s because I’m standing inside a screened porch. I step out into the front yard. It’s mostly dirt, probably due to the heavy tree cover, but a few patches of tall, red-tipped grass grow around the house, along with two large bushes. Fragments of white flowers, the edges browned by the summer sun, still cling to the branches.

  It’s late morning or early afternoon here, wherever here is. Kiernan was super mysterious when he showed up at Katherine’s, insisting on transferring the stable point into my key rather than giving me the coordinates. He took one rather dismayed look at the streaks of gray in my hair and said that I needed to bring the dye with me if I really wanted to use it. Happy that Katherine wasn’t in the room to remind me when aerosol cans were invented, I stuffed the spray into the bottom of my bag, underneath the cloche hat that Connor finally found under a stack of papers in the library.

  The sun is high and bright against a clear sky with only a few feathery wisps of white. One of the trees out front is unusual, with thick, sprawling limbs that hang almost to the ground. A faint breeze ruffles the leaves and the scattered patches of gray moss hanging down from upper branches. I glance back over my shoulder at the little dark green house, with sage-colored trim, and catch a faint whiff of paint. The wire screens are so new that they still reflect the sunlight.

  There’s a flash of blue on the porch, with a tall shadow behind it, and then Kiernan steps outside to join me.

  “What do you think?” he asks.

  “About?”

  “The house,” he says. “It’s mine. Do you like it?”

  “You bought a house? Where are we?”

  “Near Bogart.”

  I raise an eyebrow. “The guy from Casablanca?”

  “Who?” he asks, then rolls his eyes. “No, we’re in Georgia. About nine miles outside of Athens.”

  “When are we?” I realize now that his hair, which was quite short in Boston, is once again shaggy, hanging slightly in his eyes and brushing against his collar. Which is exactly the way I like it, and I really wish my brain would quit going there. “How long has it been since I left you in Boston? While we’re at it, why did you buy a house? For that matter, how did you buy a house?”

  He grins. “Again with twenty questions. Let’s see. It’s the third of October 1905, which makes it nine weeks and one day since I saw you last. How did I buy a house? A strategic investment in a sporting venture.”

  It takes me a second, and then I say, “You placed a bet.”

  “Several of them, actually.” He parks on the middle step, stretching his long, denim-clad legs out in front of him, and breaks off a few pieces of the tall red grass. “If I suggest a trip to New York City or Philadelphia in the next few years, remind me that it would be a very bad idea. And what was your last question?”

  I start to repeat it, and he says, “Oh, yes. Why? Well, I need a place to stay, and we need a base of operations, preferably a bit isolated, near Athens. Two birds, one stone.”

  “But we need a base of operations in 1938. Not 1905.”

  Kiernan kicks the edge of the bottom step with the back of his boot. “Built three years before I was born. It is standing long after 1938—I checked. I have one hundred and twenty-two acres, a little over seventy-five of that arable land, the rest woods. Closest neighbor is about a mile now, maybe a half mile by 1938.”

  “And what are you going to do with this place between now and 1938?”

  Kiernan shakes his hair out of his eyes, and I get a brief glimpse of a purple bruise a few inches above his brow, with about a half-inch-long cut that looks like it must have been painful a few days ago.

  “The farm will be managed by a caretaker named Owens and his family starting in about a week. They’ll live in the bigger house on the back forty. They’ll also be charged with keeping this”—he nods his head back toward the house—“my so-called hunting cabin, in good repair so that I can visit, although I won’t be doing much of that. The business side is run by my attorney in Athens. Given the percentage that sharecroppers make around here, the Owens family is very happy with the financial arrangements. The attorney thinks I’m a damn fool Yankee for being so generous, but he’s smart enough not to say what’s on his face. Then, in the spring of 1938, my son—a very handsome young man, the spittin’ image of his da, I might add—showed up at the attorney’s office with the title, saying he’d be living in the cabin for the next few years while he attends the University of Georgia.”

  I notice his use of the past tense and say, “So you’ve already done all of that? Even the 1938 visit from your ‘son’?”

  “Yes. I’ve been very busy.” He bites off the end of one of the grass stalks and offers me a piece. “Sourweed. Tastes kind of lemony. Want some?”

  “No, thanks.” I join him on the steps. “It sounds like you’ve got it all figured out.”

  He moves his eyebrows up and down and then grins. “Now that you mention it, I do believe
I have.”

  “And you really made enough betting on sporting events to buy a farm?”

  “Yes, and I guess I should thank you for the idea. The movies with the boy on the flying board? Auto doors that open straight up instead of out?”

  I sigh, not bothering to correct him, even though we both know that he’s never watched a movie with this version of me. “Given that you nearly talked my ear off about baseball the other day, I’m pretty sure you’d have figured it out without assistance.”

  He wrinkles his nose. “I don’t bet on baseball. I mean, it’s okay if other people do, but it just feels . . . wrong for me. Mostly it was title fights, a few football games. Took me about a week, because I couldn’t place all the bets in the same town. Altogether I pulled in a little over thirty-eight hundred.”

  It must be apparent from my expression that I’m trying to calculate the rate of inflation in my head, because he laughs. “No clue how much that is in your money, but I still have twelve hundred in the bank—maybe three years’ salary for the average person in 1905. Come on, let me give you the nickel tour.”

  He stands up and reaches down to help pull me to my feet. His hand is warm, and I feel that same electric tingle run through my body that I always feel when we touch. I let go quickly, pretending to brush something off my dress, and follow him around to the back of the house.

  “What happened to your head?” I ask.

  He laughs. “Oh, that. Just one of the many perils of home ownership. I banged it up while fixing some things inside the cabin.”

  We round the corner and enter a backyard that looks considerably different from the front where tall, mossy shade trees dominate the view. Back here, it’s mostly grass, with just two trees. One is similar to the trees out front, and the other, judging from the pits that are scattered on the ground, is a peach tree. A small lean-to shack sits to the left. The rear tire of a bicycle, propped against the wall, peeks out from the metal siding that forms the longer wall. Alongside the bicycle is a big tin washtub and some miscellaneous tools. About twenty yards behind the cabin and the shack is a wire fence, and off in the distance, a barn and another building that must be the other house Kiernan mentioned.