by April White
The guard at the gate to Bletchley Park waved us through when Professor Singh gave his name, and I could sense a change in Archer’s mood when we drove onto the grounds.
“My friend is meeting us at the mansion so we can see for ourselves this room they’ve found behind the library wall.” Ravi looked up at Archer as he helped him from the car and into a wheelchair we’d brought with us. “It’s a pity your grandfather isn’t here. He’d remember Miss Stella O’Brian with the same fondness I do. She was a Wren, you see, and worked with us on Colossus for much of the war. He would have enjoyed this.”
I caught Archer’s smile, hidden in the darkness of the car park. He winked at me as he started pushing Ravi’s wheelchair up the long drive to the mansion. “Oh, I’m certain of it.”
Ringo and I fell into step behind Archer and Ravi. Ringo slung an oiled canvas rucksack over one shoulder that I hoped was full of anything Sanda could find to help us blend into 1944. Even better if there was money or some sort of luxury goods we could trade if we needed to. I carried my own leather bag, and although Archer hadn’t said anything, I knew it bothered him that we had the bags with us.
The Bletchley Park mansion loomed up to the right of the drive in a mish-mash of architectural styles. The Tudor-Jacobean red brick was jumbled up with Victorian gables and crenellated parapets in something that looked as if a factory and a wedding cake had a baby mansion and named it Bletchley. It was so ugly it was beautiful, and I couldn’t take my eyes off it.
“Bleedin’ ‘ell,” Ringo whispered under his breath.
There was a smile in Archer’s voice. “At a certain point in gaudy architecture, it becomes necessary to embrace the mayhem, as Herbert Leon did when he turned the original brick country house into this gothic confection.”
He rang the bell and then stepped back behind the wheelchair. The door opened, and a woman I could only describe as stately stepped forward and kissed Ravi on each cheek.
“Ravindra Singh, you finally came to visit me.”
He was clearly moved by her gracious welcome, and the smile on his face was infectious. He looked back at us. “Saira, Ringo, Archer, I’d like you to meet Stella O’Brian, the most efficient and intuitive codebreaker I ever had the pleasure to work with.”
The smile on her face fairly glowed as she glanced up at us – until her eyes found Archer’s. “But you …” Her voice trailed off in a whisper that matched the shocked expression on her face. Ravi spoke jovially, as if seeing ghosts were the most natural thing in the world.
“It’s remarkable, isn’t it? The resemblance to his grandfather? Of course, it helps that he’s named after him as well.”
She hadn’t taken her eyes off Archer, and he held his hand out to her in greeting. “It’s lovely to see you, Miss O’Brian.” His voice was warm and genuinely happy, and the shock in her expression shifted to something so welcoming, I could see a flash of the beauty she had been when she was young.
“Oh Archer, it’s so good to see you.” I looked sharply at her. Stella O’Brian’s words may have been neutral, but everything in her tone of voice said she knew he was the same Archer Devereux from all those years ago. She smiled vaguely at me, then she tucked her arm into Archer’s, and he pushed Ravi’s wheelchair into the mansion.
Through her small talk with Ravi, I gathered that Stella had come back to Bletchley Park last year as a resource to the preservationists and a part-time docent. She loved to answer questions about her work at the mansion, especially because people had been forbidden for so long from speaking about their part in the codebreaking efforts of the British government.
She hadn’t let go of Archer’s arm, and I could see that despite her upright posture and regal bearing, she actually needed the support. She had to be over ninety years old, after all, and I didn’t begrudge her his attention, even though I could feel the clock ticking on my time with him. If Ava was right, and we were leaving from Bletchley Park tonight, I had maybe another hour here.
I thought about the Archer I’d find in the past – fifty years older than the one I’d first fallen in love with. This was my Archer now. This man who had survived Bishop Wilder and Joan of Arc with me, who knew my flaws and loved me anyway, who knew I liked black coffee more than tea, reading more than watching TV, and running more than almost anything except being with him. He knew I was a Cougar, and still he put me on a pedestal and made me feel like the most beautiful girl in the world.
The Archer in 1944 didn’t know any of that, and suddenly I wanted to clutch Archer’s hand and beg him to come with me. Ringo must have sensed I was about to do something rash because he sidled up to me and spoke in a low voice. “She knows.”
I looked over to where Archer, Ravi, and Stella stood at the arched entrance to a grand, wood-paneled room I assumed was the library, and saw how she couldn’t take her eyes off his face. She looked pensive when she thought no one was looking, and broke into a happy smile whenever his eyes met hers. She must have felt my gaze on her because she looked over at us with a contented smile.
And then Stella did something I recognized. Her eyes went a little glassy and unfocused, then she twitched, and when they refocused on my face, they went wide with recognition. “She’s a Seer,” I whispered back to Ringo.
Stella detached herself from Archer and Ravi with an apologetic smile and carefully made her way across the room to us. “You’re Saira,” she said. Despite our earlier introduction, it seemed like something for which she needed confirmation. I nodded yes, and her expression settled as if a question had been answered.
“He talked about you, you know.”
I kept my tone carefully neutral, trying very hard not to betray the emotional sinkhole that had suddenly opened up beneath me. “Do you remember me?”
She gave me a slow smile. “Not yet. But I wouldn’t, would I? You haven’t gone yet.”
“Is there anyone I should know when I go back? Anyone to watch out for?” Was I hoping for information about the Nancy Archer had mentioned? Maybe, but I didn’t get it from Stella.
“Commander Marks was a Monger …”
“I’ll be avoiding him,” I said quickly.
She smiled. “He wasn’t so bad. Lots of us were Seers, but just like anything else, we didn’t discuss it. The SOE sent some Shifters to train with us, but they never stayed long and didn’t much care for the regular staff. Archer was friendly with some though, he would know.”
Nancy was SOE. Was she one of the Shifters Archer was friendly with?
Stella’s eyes wandered back to where he waited with Ravi. “I suppose I should show you the hidden room. You’ll want to take note of it, as I believe it’s the place from which you’ll depart.” She included Ringo in her gaze, and then went forward to rejoin Archer. He clasped her arm in his and she leaned on him for support as they moved into the library.
“Do ye think she knows what ‘e is?” Ringo asked quietly as we fell into step behind them.
“If she does, she doesn’t care.”
I felt a wave of insecurity about all the things I didn’t know about Archer’s past wash over me, and I wanted him to brush off self-doubt that itched on my skin, but I also knew that unless I could reach all the itchy places myself, the doubt would start burrowing in and making me its home. My mental metaphors were starting to gross me out, and I hurried to catch up to the others as Stella showed Ravi the catch, hidden in the woodwork, behind the fireplace.
“I’d ‘ave found that in thirty seconds,” Ringo whispered under his breath at my shoulder.
“The workers discovered this when they pulled the paneling off to restore the wood. It was so well-hidden that it was only the seam of the door that gave it away.” Stella spoke with authority, and I thought she probably intimidated most people.
“Okay, maybe not.” Ringo looked impressed with the mechanics of the hidden latch, and when Stella pushed it in, a small seam opened up between the panels.
“Voilà.” Stella placed her palm on the panel
and leaned into it. The door moved effortlessly, opening inward to a pitch-black space behind the wall. “I believe you’ll need to walk in, Ravi. There isn’t room for the chair.”
Ravi moved slowly, but he could still walk, and Archer helped him to his feet. Stella pulled a small flashlight from her pocket and clicked it on before stepping into the void. Archer looked at me with a brief wince and a smile before he escorted Ravi in after her.
Ringo stopped to check out the latch mechanism and whistled his appreciation. “Another skill to add to the list of things to learn from ‘im.”
I slipped past him and into the space behind the wall. My night vision adjusted instantly to the gloom, but without Stella’s flashlight, I would have been blind in the pitch black. A bedroll rested against one wall, and a stool sat next to it. There were three hooks on the wall, and one of them still held a wooden hanger. I pictured Archer’s current wardrobe and realized he must have been living a very spartan lifestyle while he was here.
“Inside the bedroll is where we found the scraps of paper with your name on them, Ravi.” Stella’s voice was hushed, as if the room were still a secret. All I could think about was how lonely this existence must have been for Archer, and even though the alternative was more than I could handle, the single bedroll made me unbearably sad for him.
I suddenly had to get out of the tiny space, and I strode past Ringo without looking at him, trying very hard to hold the tears back. I made it out of the library before they came, and had to lean against the arched wall to stay upright as silent sobs wracked my body.
It was like he had lived in a cell – in a kind of solitary confinement that wasn’t even living. He would have dressed in the dark, constantly hoping the library was clear every evening when he escaped. Everything in secret, everything hidden, and totally alone in the knowledge of who he really was.
And yet Archer had talked about me. As though somehow the smallest time we had spent together in 1888 made such an impression that I could still be real for him fifty years later.
His arms wrapped around me from behind and I turned and flung myself into him. He stroked my hair and murmured soothing sounds until the tears had calmed down enough for me to breathe without gasping. “I’m sorry,” I whispered into his neck.
I swiped the wet streaks from his skin when I stepped back from him, then pulled the hem of my t-shirt up to wipe my face. His hands went around my bare waist, and his touch made my breath catch. “Why are you sorry? What’s this about?” Archer wiped a lingering tear from my cheek as his eyes searched mine. I mentally debated the risks of sounding like the idiot I’d been if I spilled it all.
And because being an idiot wasn’t the worst thing that could happen, I gave him the short version of my fear about the cure, my jealousy about whatever life he’d had before me, and my sadness at the solitude he must have known for so many years. I was about to Clock without him, to a version of him I didn’t know, and I was pretty much a walking emotional disaster. The word-vomit-fest took less than five minutes, and I’d managed to at least get the tears and snot under control by the time the others came out of the library.
Ravi was back in his wheelchair looking tired after the few minutes spent on his feet. Stella, on the other hand, looked like the visit had invigorated her. She saw my face and gave me an understanding smile.
“Would you boys like to see the Colossus they’ve reconstructed in the H block? It’s the National Museum of Computing now, of course, but you may still recognize the building, and you’ll certainly recognize the machine.”
Ravi’s energy sparked at the idea. “Oh yes! I’d heard they built it using plans drawn from memory.”
Archer’s arm tightened around me as we followed them out. Ringo had taken over the job of pushing Ravi’s wheelchair and managed to provide support to Stella as well. I knew it was selfish of me to have Archer by my side, but I needed just another minute or two until my knees didn’t threaten to buckle with every step.
“The British government ordered all but two of the Colossus machines destroyed after the war. They didn’t want the rest of Europe to realize they’d broken the Lorenz cipher,” Archer explained. “The Russians were still using Lorenz, and I believe we continued to break their codes until about 1960, when it was finally revealed to them that we had Colossus. At that point the last two machines were broken up, and, as I understand it, thrown down coal holes. Consequently, the world didn’t realize until recently that the English were at the forefront in computing. Credit has always gone to the Americans for their ENIAC innovations.”
“That’s what you guys get for having so many secrets,” I smirked.
“It seems the Americans may have been the ones to let slip to the Russians that we’d broken their code,” Archer shot back.
Oh. Touché.
Ravi and Stella carried on the conversation with memories of working on the Colossus machines, and Archer held me back a step so we could speak privately.
“I had fallen deeply in love with you in 1888, but then you were gone, and I had a new life to navigate. The first years passed quickly enough as I still lived in a world with which I was familiar. Watching my father’s decline was difficult, of course, and it was perhaps fortunate that I hadn’t made friends at Kings College from which to have to hide myself, but for the most part I tried to pretend I wasn’t a monster and dreamt about the time we could be together again.”
I held my breath, not even bothering to protest the ‘monster’ comment. I could feel the “but” part of the conversation coming.
“And then England went to war. You had warned me, of course, but no amount of foreknowledge could have prepared me for the sheer human devastation. It was in the Great War that I accepted that my monstrousness couldn’t hold a candle to what I’d seen others do, and it was worse than you can ever imagine at the front lines. The term ‘shell shock’ was coined during that war, and so many, many had it. But emotional injuries were considered weak, concussive brain injuries hadn’t been studied yet, and unstable, damaged men were sent back to the front lines.” Archer’s voice trailed off, and he looked away from me as he spoke. I sensed he was with his memories more than with me.
When he continued, he spoke directly to me. “Twenty-one years later, when Britain entered World War II, a new crop of young men volunteered for the madness, believing their patriotic duty could be served in a few months. Their shell-shocked fathers and I knew better, and I was determined to stay off the front lines of that war. I needed very much to continue to believe in the goodness of humanity, because war is terrifying. And terrified people make choices they’d never make if the circumstances were different.”
There was something he wasn’t telling me, and I’d never heard such hesitancy from him before. He was staring into the distance again, unfocused and not present.
“Archer? What is it,” I said quietly.
This time his eyes didn’t return to mine. “I thought it could continue where we’d left off. I thought I could find you and marry you and live the life I’d dreamed of, because I’d left the war behind me where it couldn’t touch you. But I should have known it would catch up to me. Monsters always get theirs in the end.”
The resignation in his voice scared me. “What are you talking about? I don’t understand.”
He inhaled shakily. “There was someone. Someone important to me.”
And … there it was. I clamped down on muscles that threatened to shake and made my expression as passive and neutral as I could manage.
Archer stumbled on, deliberately not looking at me. “There was a mission in France. The intensity of surviving overcame … my control … everything.”
“You slept with someone. That’s what you’re saying?”
He closed his eyes as if wincing at the words. “The memory is a blur.”
It was the wince that got me. I usually only got nauseous around Mongers, but nausea suddenly wrapped its fist around my stomach and twisted. My heart pounded and I fl
ushed with heat, but I forced my voice into something normal. “Was it Nancy?”
Archer hesitated. “I truly can’t say. She was dynamic and fascinating, and I did go to France with her, but so much of that time is missing from my memory.”
My voice dulled. “You don’t remember.”
His eyes had locked onto mine, as if they begged for my understanding. “It may be the shell shock … from the Great War. Even now, anything explosive makes my mind just … blank for a moment. I lose my bearing and feel as though I’m underwater, as though sound and movement go into slow motion.”
I couldn’t even process what he was saying. It was too much information, and every bit of it sucked. “So, you’ve basically had PTSD for a hundred years?”
“A form of it, I’m sure. Memory loss is a typical symptom of what they began to call battle fatigue.”
“But wouldn’t your virus have healed it?”
He gave me an odd look. “Only part of the damage was physical, and psychiatric help doesn’t keep my hours.”
The fist in my stomach twisted tighter.
Archer stopped walking. “Why is my shell shock the focus of your inquiry? I would have thought you’d want to know …” His voice trailed off, and I thought I’d never seen Archer at such a loss for words.
“That I’d want to know about your lover?”
He winced. Good. I was cringing inside at the term, the thought, and everything about the idea.
“I really don’t, Archer. I get why you told me. Running into the two of you getting cozy together would be phenomenally awkward, and more than a little bit painful, but I really wish I didn’t have to know. I mean, it was like, seventy years ago, and you hadn’t seen me in more than fifty years. Rationally, it doesn’t make sense for me to even care.”
