Time's Edge

by Rysa Walker

There are also two texts from Charlayne. I have to look away from the phone for a moment, because a bit of dizziness hits me, but it passes quickly. I click first on the text that came in while Trey and I were at dinner, which I’m pretty sure is another homework question. But there’s no mention of assignments, just a cryptic message:

  Dinner is trap. You were set up. Eve is ROFL, but not really funny IMO.

  It was nice of her to try and warn me, assuming this was sincere and not another plank in the ongoing campaign to instill Charlayne as my BFF.

  The weird thing is that her second message has the same time stamp. I start to click “Delete,” thinking it’s a duplicate, but then I open it.

  Welcome to the Fifth Column!!

  I stare at the phone, trying to remember where I’ve heard those words recently. My brain is too tired to pull it up, so I move to the voice messages. There are three—two from Trey and one from Mom. But the one from Mom came in three days ago, and I don’t remember missing a call. I click to start the message, and after a moment her voice comes on. She’s giddy beyond anything I’ve ever heard, ten times as excited as she was about the research grant.

  “Kate, sweetie, I have the most wonderful, incredible news. Call me the second you get this. Unless it’s after—argh! I can’t think clearly enough to figure out the time zones. Or just talk to your grandmother. Or your dad. I’m calling them right now. I love you! I’ll talk to you soon!”

  For some reason her excitement has the opposite effect on me. I’m terrified, and Charlayne’s text—Welcome to the Fifth Column!!—flashes into my mind again. I toss the phone onto my bed and run to the door.

  “Katherine! Connor!”

  The lights are on in the library, and I start running in that direction. Then a motion from downstairs catches my eye, and I turn toward the staircase instead.

  “Kate!” It’s Trey. He’s sitting on the couch, petting Daphne. I’m so surprised to see him that I miss a step and have to grab the rail to keep from stumbling.

  “Why are you here? You can’t be here, Trey. Something is going on—something with Mom, I think.”

  Katherine and Connor must have been in the library, because they’re hurrying down the other stairway. They look worried, and I feel a cold fist tighten around my insides.

  “Mom called. Something happened. What happened?”

  “Kate, it’s going to be okay,” Katherine says, but I’m pretty sure she’s been crying.

  Trey puts his arm around my shoulders and starts leading me to the couch, but I stop him. “You didn’t answer me. Why are you here, Trey?”

  The truth is that I’m happy beyond belief to see him. I want him to put his arms around me and make me forget the rest of the world exists, because I don’t think I want to hear what Katherine is about to tell me. But I’m also certain that no matter what has happened, Trey is in danger if he’s near me.

  “Trey is here because he brought us some information,” Connor says. “He knows someone who may be able to help us with the antidote.”

  “And I asked him to stay,” Katherine says, “because we’ve had some news.”

  It hits me with absolute certainty, and my knees buckle. Trey gets me to the couch, and I lean into him, breathing him in. Without that, without the solid reality of him next to me, I don’t think I’d have found the strength to say it.

  “She’s dead, isn’t she?”

  “No!” Katherine says. “She’s not dead. It’s just that . . . she’s found Prudence. Or I guess I should say Prudence has found her. Deborah called me a few days ago, and she was ecstatic.”

  I’m too stunned to speak. I don’t know what this means, but it can’t be good.

  “Deborah believes it was a chance meeting. Prudence gave her some story about having amnesia for the past thirty years, totally unbelievable. Straight out of a soap opera, but Deborah bought it.”

  Connor makes a wry face. “Because the time travel version would have been so much more believable.”

  “You know what I mean, Connor.”

  I finally find my voice. “How? I just talked to her tonight, before I left, and she didn’t . . . and I was here a few days ago . . . and . . .”

  Of course, I know the answer before Katherine even starts. “Something changed, dear. A number of things, actually, although the call from Deborah is the only thing that triggered a direct duplicate memory for me. Are the keys still in your room?”

  It takes a moment to realize what she’s asking. The thing I was so nervous about telling them seems almost insignificant now. “I didn’t get them. Any of them. Simon—”

  Connor and Katherine exchange a glance, clearly confused.

  “We just assumed,” Connor says, “given all of the changes that have popped up in the current timeline. And what Trey told us as well.”

  I turn to look at Trey, and he shrugs. “It isn’t much really. It’s just—please don’t get angry, Kate—after you left, I just couldn’t . . . I couldn’t let you walk away like that. Dad means well. I know he’s trying to protect me, and I know you are, too, but I was wrong to promise him I’d stay out of this. If everything you’ve told me is true—and I know it is—then nobody with an ounce of decency can stay out of this.”

  He takes a deep breath and says, “I called Tilson, okay? I didn’t give him specifics on what you needed or why, but as soon as I mentioned your name, he hung up. A half hour later, a taxi pulled up outside the house. It was Tilson, and we had a long talk. Outside—I’m a little spooked about saying anything inside the house right now. Anyway, Tilson is part of a large anti-Cyrist alliance. Scientists, lawyers, political leaders—it’s apparently been around since the early 1940s, but they’re really secretive. Some of them are even Cyrists, working on the inside. He said whatever you need, they’ll help.”

  A large network. Allies.

  Exactly what Delia said we’d need if we’re ever going to have a chance against the Cyrists.

  And that’s when the dots start to form a coherent pattern.

  The Fifth Column. Those were Abel’s words. A group fighting from the inside.

  I didn’t even realize I’d spoken the words aloud, but Katherine gives me a strange look, and Connor pulls something out of his pocket. It’s a small envelope with my name on it.

  “This came about an hour ago,” he says. “It was attached to a floral arrangement, but who delivers flowers at nine o’clock at night? I was pretty sure it was bugged, so I dumped the flowers into the trash. But I kept the card, because of the name—and just in case you knew what it meant.”

  I take it from him. It’s just seven typed words and a signature:

  Kate~The Fifth Column welcomes you home.

  Julia Morrell Waters

  Acknowledgments

  Let me start out with the question I’m often asked—how much of that historical stuff is real? A full answer would require another twenty pages, so I’m just going to list a few examples. If there are others you’re wondering about, I’d be happy to answer your questions on my blog.

  The Koreshan Unity was founded in Chicago by Cyrus Reed Teed sometime in the early 1890s and relocated to Estero, Florida, around 1898, where they lived until the 1960s. The group believed, among other things, that the Earth was hollow and that celibacy would result in eternal life. When Cyrus Teed died, they placed him in a bathtub and waited for him to awaken, agreeing to bury him only when the county health inspector insisted.

  Norumbega Park opened in 1897, and the Great Steel Theater (later called the Totem Pole Ballroom) hosted thousands of vaudeville performers and headliners, like Frank Sinatra, until it closed in 1963.

  In 1905, an escape artist billed himself as Boudini, hoping that Harry Houdini would get angry enough to challenge him to a public contest. The publicity scheme worked, but Houdini won the challenge—and some say Houdini was behind it from the start.

  Oconee County, Georgia, was the site of a mass lynching in June 1905, when nine inmates were dragged from the jail and s
hot by a firing squad of masked men.

  An unknown murderer, dubbed the Atlanta Ripper by the press, killed over two dozen African American women in 1911.

  One event, however, is still murky. Dozens of ghost towns exist throughout the South, including one near Hiltonia, Georgia, that the locals called Six Bridges. The place is still listed as an unpopulated historical location on some maps. Legend holds that the residents of Six Bridges were all found dead in the pews of their small church. I was never able to discover whether this tale is based on an actual event or is simply a ghost story designed to keep curious kids from poking around in the woods. The most likely answer to the mystery of Six Bridges, as with any ghost town, is that the residents just moved away. Since the story is probably more fiction than fact, I exercised a great deal of creative license with Six Bridges, moving the village a few hundred miles north of its actual location so that it would better fit my story line. If any readers have more information on what really happened at Six Bridges, however, the history geek in me is dying to know.

  This book could never have been written without my dear friend and unpaid research assistant, Google, who tirelessly helped every day—finding online archives and newspapers, providing me with detailed maps and images of various locations, and tracking down reliable and accurate answers to the thousands of questions that arise when one writes about historical events. His willingness to work at any hour of the day or night is deeply appreciated, and I’m willing to forgive the many times he pointed me toward Yahoo Answers or convinced me to click on an article that had absolutely nothing to do with the topic at hand.

  Thank you to the family, friends, fans, and fellow writers who have cheered me along over the past year and who help me stay sane when the inevitable bouts of writer’s block come along. Extra thanks go to those in my Facebook and Twitter networks who aren’t shy about telling me to get off social media and back to writing. Big hugs to Gareth and Ariana for shamelessly plugging my books, and to Eleanor for periodic reminders that all work and no play make Rysa go crazy.

  Readers who are also reviewers and book bloggers have the gratitude of every writer. Your reviews help to connect our books with the right readers. The time you spend jotting down your thoughts about the books you like (and even those you don’t!) is invaluable to other readers, so I’d like to thank the thousands of you who have taken the time to tell others about The CHRONOS Files.

  I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Jenny MacRunnel, Jen Wesner, Karen Benson, Karen Stansbury, Kristi Clowers, Joy Joo, Pete, Ian, Ryan, Donna, Richard, and Persons-I’ve-Probably-Forgotten, who bravely volunteered (or, in the case of family members, were conscripted) to beta read Time’s Edge. Your comments and suggestions were a tremendous help, and I truly appreciate the time you took to read and critique the book, even in its rough and unkempt early form.

  Special thanks go to my phenomenal publishing team at Skyscape, especially Courtney Miller, Erick Pullen, and Timoney Korbar, who have gone above and beyond time and time again. Without my wonderfully patient developmental editor, Marianna Baer, this book would have been a very different creature—thanks for putting up with me! Katherine Adams and Carrie Wicks helped patch up my typos, and Katherine tried to discourage my deep and quite possibly irrational love of italics. To Kate Rudd, many thanks for lending my characters your incredibly talented voice. Finally, kudos to Scott Barrie for creating another eye-catching cover.

  And again, I close with thanks to my home team here at Casa del Chaos. You’ve tolerated my anxious moments and assorted insane writer behavior with few complaints and haven’t even griped (much) about too many nights with takeout for dinner. I love you bunches.

  About the Author

  PHOTO © JEFF KOLBFLEISCH

  RYSA WALKER is the author of runaway hit Timebound, winner of the grand prize in the 2013 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest, and Time’s Echo, the linked novella.

  Walker grew up on a cattle ranch in the South, where her entertainment options included talking to cows and reading books. On the rare occasion that she gained control of the television, she watched Star Trek and imagined living in the future, on distant planets, or at least in a town big enough to have a stoplight.

  She now lives in North Carolina, where she shares an office with her husband and their golden retriever, Lucy. She still doesn’t get control of the TV very often, thanks to two sports-obsessed kids.