witches of cleopatra hill 06 - spellbound

by Pope, Christine

  You’ll be wearing one dress, she told herself, along with all the underpinnings. It’ll be fine.

  She supposed it would have to be.

  * * *

  That night Danica didn’t sleep well. Just nerves, of course. But she also knew she didn’t want to make her debut in 1884 looking wan and tired, and eventually she drifted off to sleep.

  Since she’d already told her mother that she would be going to an event the next day, Danica figured it was safe enough to get dressed at home. Since she now knew that the bustle sort of collapsed when she sat on it, she thought she’d be able to drive while fully garbed, even if it might feel a bit awkward. Careful deliberation had led her to decide that the best place to “materialize” — for lack of a better word — was on the train platform itself, since Miss Eliza Prewitt was expected to arrive by train. Danica just hoped no one would notice that she’d never actually gotten off the train car itself.

  The blue and green plaid gown seemed like the best traveling dress, so that was what she put on, shaking fingers working the row of velvet-covered buttons up the front. Garnet and gold earrings she’d bought at a local antique store, and a matching ring. Hair in the heavy looped crown of braids at the back of her head, and the black velvet hat with its jaunty plumes perched just so.

  “Holy moly,” her father said as she descended the stairs. He was just coming out of the kitchen, a glass of iced tea in his hand. “You’re looking right purty, little lady.”

  “Oh, God, Dad,” Danica replied with a roll of her eyes. “That’s a terrible John Wayne impression.”

  “Yes, it is,” he agreed amiably. “But that is a great getup. You look like you walked right off the set of Tombstone.”

  Which, considering what a fan he was of the movie, was pretty high praise. “Thanks. Now I just have to see if I can maneuver into my car in all this.” She didn’t bother to mention that she’d packed everything she wouldn’t be wearing the night before, then smuggled it down to the Land Rover while both her parents were still asleep. Going to a Wild West reenactment was one thing, but taking along a bunch of changes of clothes was sure to raise questions she didn’t want to answer.

  “Well, I’ll open the door to your carriage for you.”

  Danica just smiled and shook her head. “Where’s Mom?”

  “Oh, she had to run to the store for a couple of things. I’m sure she’ll be sad she missed your debut, but I suppose you can show yourself off to her when you get back.”

  If I get back, she thought then. No, that was just silly. She’d already proved that she could return to the present very easily. The hard part was going to be keeping herself back in 1884.

  “Okay. Well, the event starts at eleven, so I’d better get moving.”

  They both went out to the garage. When Mason still lived here, Danica was the odd one out who had to park in the driveway, but now Danica’s Land Rover occupied the garage’s third bay. She actually did need her father’s help to hand her up into the driver’s seat, mostly because the corset prevented her from bending the way she was used to when sliding in behind the steering wheel. But eventually she was more or less in place, although the feathers on her hat kept getting jammed up against the SUV’s headliner.

  “Have fun!” her father called out as she hit the remote to open the garage door.

  Somehow she summoned a smile. She wasn’t sure how fun it would be…but she had a feeling her trip to the past was going to be something of an adventure.

  Danica was able to park in the Amtrak station’s parking lot. Leaving the SUV worried her a little, but then she reassured herself that this was time travel, after all. She’d come back within five minutes of leaving, no harm, no foul. And if the worst happened….

  Well, the Land Rover would get towed, and her parents would be notified, since their name was on the title along with hers. And they’d spend the rest of their lives wondering what had happened to their daughter.

  Stop it, she thought. Just stop it. Why defeat yourself before you even get started?

  Her inner voice more or less shut up after that. She clambered out of the SUV and went around back to retrieve the carpetbag. Several people in the parking lot immediately gave her the side-eye, and she couldn’t really blame them. Most travelers taking the train didn’t do so while wearing a voluminous plaid bustle gown. Then again, the gown had its uses, because she was able to block part of the vehicle with her skirt as she slipped the car key into one of those little magnetic holders and secreted the little box in one of the rear wheelwells. She’d decided that was the safest thing to do, because the key would have been a hideous anachronism back in 1884…and what if she managed to lose it?

  Ignoring the stares, Danica headed up to the platform. One woman did call out, “Are you in a play?”

  Luckily, she’d prepared herself for these sorts of questions. “No,” she replied. “I’m here to do a photo shoot for the Chamber of Commerce. It looks like the photographer’s late, though.”

  “Oh, that’s fun,” the woman replied, but she didn’t say anything else as Danica breezed on by. Photo shoots weren’t exactly the most exciting thing in the world, unless supermodels were involved or something.

  After making her way to the spot she’d decided on, Danica paused on the platform and drew in a breath. No one was out here with her, since the next train wasn’t due for several hours. That was partly why she’d chosen to come at this time of day — the chances of anyone seeing her suddenly disappear were fairly low.

  All right, then. She shut her eyes, imagining the nip in the air from the last time she’d gone back to that earlier Flagstaff. The golden leaves on the oak trees. And then the shiny black locomotive, stopping next to a platform of pine hewn from the forests above town. The swirl of coal smoke from its engine, and the waiting people in their hats and frock coats and bustle dresses.

  The smell of pitch, and the mournful cry of a train’s horn. Danica opened her eyes, and all around her were people in Victorian garb alighting from the train, families mostly, but here and there a man or woman alone, someone who was invariably greeted by a waiting family member or friend.

  And then a woman’s voice, calling out, “Miss Prewitt? Miss Eliza Prewitt?”

  Oh, Danica thought, that’s me.

  She turned and saw a sturdy-looking woman in her forties approaching, black gown swishing over the wooden planks of the platform, a quizzical expression on her face. “You are Miss Prewitt, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Danica replied.

  The other woman didn’t exactly sigh with relief, but she did appear to relax slightly. “Oh, excellent. I am Mrs. Marshall, the other teacher at the school here. Everyone thought it would be best if I came to meet you.”

  No wonder Mrs. Marshall was relieved. Eliza Prewitt was supposed to have arrived at the beginning of the school year, but now it had to be mid-October, and she was only just showing up. Well, the truth of the matter was that she never actually appeared, but Danica saw no reason to comment on that, not when she was coopting the young woman’s identity for her own use.

  “Oh, thank you, Mrs. Marshall,” she replied, hoping nothing in her accent or choice of words would give her away as someone from a lot farther off than just St. Louis, Missouri. “I do appreciate that. And I do wish to apologize for my late arrival, but there was a family emergency that delayed me. I did send a telegram — ”

  “Which never arrived,” Mrs. Marshall said, looking annoyed. “I keep saying that we need a new man in the telegraph office, but no one ever listens to me.” She leaned closer to Danica and added in conspiratorial tones, “He drinks, you know.”

  Danica’s eyes widened. Apparently Mrs. Marshall took that as the correct response, for she nodded vigorously, the plumes on her hat dancing.

  “I know. Scandalous! But I fear, Miss Prewitt, that you will find Flagstaff a rough town, especially for someone from a civilized place like St. Louis.”

  “I’m sure it will be fine, Mrs.
Marshall.”

  “Well, I hope it will be, for I do need the help at the school. And there is quite a good boarding house here in town, which is where I will take you now.”

  With that, she turned and began to stride purposefully toward the edge of the platform. Still clutching her carpetbag, Danica followed. She wanted to look everywhere, take in everything she saw, but she worried Mrs. Marshall might view any kind of gawking as an example of very unladylike curiosity. But surely it wouldn’t be too awful to study things just a little bit as she passed. After all, “Miss Prewitt” was a newcomer here; some interest was only to be expected.

  As they crossed the street, the two women had to dodge heavy wagons, some filled with unhewn logs, others with smooth-planed boards clearly fresh from the lumbermill. Men on horseback went by, several of them sending stares in Danica’s direction that weren’t exactly what she’d consider polite. She kept her chin up and didn’t return those stares. After all, it wasn’t so strange that they’d be looking at a young woman newly come to town, especially since it was probably obvious that she was on her own.

  Luckily, their destination was only a few blocks away. Mrs. Marshall led Danica up the steps of a two-story clapboard house, painted white with green shutters. She knocked, explaining, “This is Mrs. Wilson’s boarding house. She has four rooms to let for genteel young ladies like yourself. She’ll take very good care of you.”

  And watch me like a hawk, I’m sure, Danica thought. Getting some private time with her “ghost” might turn out to be something of a challenge. At the same time, though, it was probably just as well that she had some protection from the types of men she’d spotted on the walk to the boarding house.

  The door opened, and a thin, tall woman with iron-gray hair looked out at the two of them. She wore a gray gown, and so she seemed almost all gray. Except her eyes — they were bright blue, and gave Danica a shrewd up-and-down glance.

  “You must be Miss Prewitt,” she said. “I’m Mrs. Wilson. Your room is ready — although I’ll have to change the sheets again, as I made up the room more than a month ago, when we thought you’d be arriving.”

  “I am so sorry — ” Danica began, but Mrs. Wilson only held up a hand.

  “You’re here now. Why don’t you and Mrs. Marshall wait down in the parlor here while I freshen up your room?”

  There was no way to decline that offer, so Danica nodded and then followed her companion inside. The front room, or “parlor,” was jammed full with two sofas, a low marble-topped table, a pair of carved chairs, and a matched set of curio cabinets stuffed with hand-painted china, butterflies under glass, and what looked like an odd assortment of Indian arrowheads.

  “I’ve just put the tea on,” Mrs. Wilson said. “I’ll bring that out first, and then go tend to your room.”

  “Thank you,” Danica said, somewhat weakly. It was one thing to pop back in time, look around for a minute or so, and then go back where you belonged. It was quite another to be standing here in this shining example of overwrought Victorian interior decorating and talking about having tea. But she knew she couldn’t let herself dwell on that, had to act as if all this was perfectly natural.

  Flow with it, she told herself. Don’t think about it. Just be it.

  Mrs. Marshall offered her thanks as well, then made her way over to one of the velvet-upholstered couches and settled herself on it, disposing her own voluminous bustle with the ease of long practice. Danica wasn’t sure she was quite that graceful about the procedure, but she did manage to sit down on the other sofa without incident.

  “It was a good thing you came in on a Saturday,” the other woman said. “For if it had been a weekday, I would have been in school, and someone else might have had to fetch you. Perhaps Mr. Wilcox.”

  Somehow Danica managed to keep herself from stiffening. “Mr. Wilcox?” she asked, hoping she had injected the correct amount of innocent curiosity into her tone.

  “Oh, yes. He’s one of our more prominent citizens here. And his family has a good number of children attending the school.”

  “So he has a lot of children?”

  Something in Mrs. Marshall’s brisk manner seemed to falter. “Well, not Mr. Wilcox himself. He has only the one son. Mr. Wilcox’s wife passed away some years ago.”

  So people here seemed to think of Nizhoni as Jeremiah’s wife, even though Danica knew they’d never been formally married.

  “Oh, I am sorry to hear that.”

  “Well, it can be a tragedy, but life does go on. However, I was speaking of his extended family. Mr. Wilcox came here with his brothers and sister, and their spouses and children. There are seventeen children among them.”

  “My goodness!” Danica exclaimed. Her study of the period had instructed her that a well-bred young lady didn’t dare utter anything stronger than that. Even so, she thought she sounded like an idiot.

  Mrs. Marshall didn’t seem to notice, however. Nodding, she said, “Now you see why we had so much need of a second teacher. Why, we have forty-three children to instruct this school year, which of course is far too many for any one person to manage.”

  Danica couldn’t imagine trying to ride herd on forty-three children at once, let alone kids of all different ages and learning levels. “That is a good number.”

  “Indeed,” Mrs. Marshall replied.

  However, Danica couldn’t help noticing how the other woman’s eyes narrowed during that exchange. Damn, had she goofed somehow? Maybe when the “real” Miss Prewitt had applied for the position, she’d been told how many students were attending the Flagstaff school. Well, there wasn’t anything Danica could do about the slip-up now, so she tried to look as innocent as possible.

  Luckily, Mrs. Wilson returned then, carrying a silver tray with a hand-painted tea set floridly decorated with roses. She set the tray down on the marble-topped table, then said, “I’ll just see to your room now, Miss Prewitt.”

  “Thank you so much.”

  The mistress of the boarding house departed, and Mrs. Marshall took it on herself to serve, pouring some of the fragrant steaming liquid into the teacups. There was cream and sugar, and although Danica generally took her tea black, she picked up one sugar cube with a pair of silver tongs and carefully dropped it into her cup, then stirred in a small measure of cream. Her companion did the same, although she didn’t seem too concerned about being sparing with the cream.

  “And tomorrow there is church, of course,” she remarked, apropos of nothing. Fixing Danica with a steely gray stare, she went on, “I assume you will be coming to the Methodist services?”

  Her tone seemed to indicate that Danica would burn in eternal hellfire if she indicated another preference. Since she hadn’t even been inside a church since her cousin Anna got married almost a year ago, Danica really didn’t have an opinion one way or another, and in fact hadn’t even considered the question of church when she was making her preparations for her trip into the past. A stupid oversight; a lot of social activities back in the day tended to center around a person’s church.

  “Of course,” Danica said quickly.

  Mrs. Marshall smiled. She actually had quite good teeth, a detail that made Danica wonder if the article she’d come across in her studies had been accurate after all, the one that said people in the Victorian era had better teeth than one might expect, since they consumed less sugar, and processed foods hadn’t yet made their appearance. She hoped it was true. Yes, she’d seen the ghost’s teeth when he smiled at her, and they had seemed fine, but you never knew.

  “Very good,” Mrs. Marshall said. “You can come with me and my boys. It’ll be an excellent opportunity for everyone to meet you before you start in at the school on Monday.”

  “Boys?”

  “Yes, William and Matthew. They’re nine and thirteen. Their father has been gone these three years” — she pulled a blindingly white handkerchief from her reticule and dabbed at her eyes — “but I can manage, thanks to the school.”

  And ho
w hard that must have been, to be left widowed in this rough frontier town with two young boys to raise. Danica couldn’t even begin to imagine it. “I’m very glad I could come to assist you. And I look forward to meeting your boys.” She wouldn’t let herself worry too much about that ominous reference to meeting “everyone.” Would that group include the Wilcoxes?

  A little shiver went over her at the thought.

  What would they be like?

  8

  Danica found out soon enough, since Mrs. Marshall appeared at the boarding house promptly at five minutes before ten on Sunday morning, both her boys in tow. They grinned at Danica, apparently not self-conscious at all, and she smiled back. They both had their mother’s wavy brown hair and gray eyes, although they looked as if they’d end up being blessed with a good deal more height than she possessed. Maybe their father had been tall.

  That morning, Danica had put on her wine-colored wool gown, since it seemed a little dressier than the two cotton outfits she had. She was still trying to come to grips with the realization that she’d spent an entire night here, had slept in the narrow white iron bedstead in her room and hadn’t blinked back to the twenty-first century as soon as her eyes closed.

  And she’d survived the bathroom as well. At least Mrs. Wilson’s boarding house, which she proudly proclaimed to be completely modern and up to date, had an actual bathroom, with a primitive flush toilet and a bathtub. Saturday nights were bath nights, although Danica was informed that she could purchase another bath on Tuesday evenings for an extra dollar per week. That seemed a fair enough trade-off, although she was having a hard time coming to terms with the notion of only bathing twice a week.

  Despite that privation, no one around her seemed to be particularly stinky. She wasn’t sure why, exactly, but she’d take it. In the back of her mind, she’d worried that she’d meet her handsome ghost and find out he reeked of sweat. However, that didn’t seem to be as big an issue as she’d thought it would.