But Not Forever

by Jan Von Schleh

  John laid another penny down and set his oldest son on the counter. Jacob threw and missed all three times. John replaced Jacob with Miles with the same result. Their little arms didn’t have the strength to reach the hoop and their faces drooped with disappointment.

  “My turn,” I said, to the Sweetwine family.

  They stared as if I had just set myself on fire.

  “Dear . . .” John shook his head.

  “Put a penny down for me, please.” Behind me, Thorn’s angry tongue click and the boys’ joyful whoops were the opposite realities in my Monte Cristo constellation of existence.

  John heard, too. He laid a penny on the counter.

  I sized up the target while people gathered to watch the girl. I backed up a few feet, wound my arm behind my head, and threw the ball. It sailed straight through the target with a satisfying swoosh. The boys screamed. John gawked. Thorn seethed.

  The man moved the hoop further away. I reared back and threw. My second ball soared directly through the center. Bullseye! The crowd laughed and clapped and more people elbowed in behind me.

  The man moved it back again. I took three deep breaths, wound and threw. Another direct hit. Miles, Jacob, and the mob went wild.

  The man swept his arm at the grand prizes and pointed to the biggest doll. “How ’bout this pretty baby doll?”

  “Thanks, but I’ll take another tin soldier.”

  “You can have a bigger, better prize, young lady. You certainly warrant it.”

  “Just the soldier is fine.”

  I handed it to Miles and took the other off the counter where John had set it. I held it out to Jacob.

  “Thank you, Emma.”

  “Right, then. Good work!” John twirled the end of his mustache at me and winked.

  The toe of Thorn’s pink suede shoe tapped pillows of dust into the air. She held her pink parasol out against the sun. “John . . .”

  “Yes, then, come along. I believe the photographer’s booth is over that way.” He jostled Miles up under one arm and Jacob under the other. They squealed and hung on to their new toys, reveling in their father’s attention.

  I trailed behind as we jostled through the promenading people, scanning across stalls for red-and-white curtains. Where was she? There were so many people today, I had lost my bearings. Tightness circled my throat and made it hard to swallow.

  Faith does not make things easy, Sonnet. Faith makes things possible.

  I unclenched my fists and rolled my tight shoulders and neck. I swallowed the panic back down and listened to Simeon speak to me.

  So lost in my thoughts, I ran into Thorn’s pink lace-covered parasol pointing back at me like a sharp sword. A wood sign with black letters dangled above our heads. PHOTOGRAPHS— FIFTEEN CENTS APIECE.

  “We shall have two images, please. One of the entire family and one of just the children. My name is Mister John Sweetwine.”

  “That will be thirty cents. I know who you are, sir.” The man held back a canvas flap and we entered a crude photo studio. A small wooden platform held different props. “Which background, Mister Sweetwine?”

  John surveyed the three choices. “The countryside. With the mountains in the rear. Just like Monte Cristo.”

  The assistant rolled the background into place and draped a white swag across the top of the mountain. Black lettering across its silky surface announced, MONTE CRISTO ICE CAVES FAIR, AUGUST 21–23, 1895.

  In the center of the platform, men arranged two high-backed chairs. A faux marble pillar stood off to the side of one chair, and a bouquet of flowers in a clear vase sat on top of it. John plunked down and put Miles on his lap. Thorn sat on the other chair with Jacob next to her. As the surplus Sweetwine, the only one without blue eyes and blond hair, the assistant motioned me to stand apart—cozied up to the pillar. He folded my hands on top of each other beside the vase.

  “Hold still, now.” The photographer put his head under a black cloth and yanked a metal chain on the side of a wooden box. I jumped at the loud explosion and flash. A cloud of black smoke and the smell of rotten eggs spilled through the air.

  “Fine, just fine.” John uprooted Miles from his lap. He waved his hands around his head, whooshing the smoke away. “I shall take a break outside while the children have their photograph taken.”

  “The Ice Caves Fair Saloon is around the corner, sir. Gentlemen take their breaks there.” The photographer winked at John.

  John’s eyes skittered across to Thorn and away to the canvas door flap. “You will find me at the saloon then, with the other men.” He handed the man three dimes and left before she could protest.

  The chairs were replaced by a small blue bench. “Stand at the same spot, miss, and the young ’uns here.” He patted the bench. Miles and Jacob scrambled up with their shiny new tin soldiers. The photographer walked around behind his camera and tossed the black hood over his head.

  Thorn glowered from the side of the platform. I whisked my hair back at her. She darted over. “No, I will not have you in this one.” She grappled at my neck, dragging me away from the camera as the lace collar caught in her fingers. I heard a rip and felt buttons tumble down my chest just as there was another flash and explosion.

  The cameraman peered out from under his hood with a frown, flapping at the air with his handkerchief. “You moved.”

  Thorn spotted the ring hanging below my throat. She was too fast. Her hand was a white blur rushing at my neck. She jerked. A long drip of white and yellow and black fell into her palm. Her fingers snapped over it, making a fist. “What have I told you about fripperies on girls?”

  “Give it back.”

  “We are finished here. Come, boys.” She caught her sons’ hands, hauled them off the bench, and marched to the flap, throwing it open and dragging Jacob and Miles out before anyone had a chance to help her. I started after her and remembered my open dress.

  The photographer ran and handed me a shawl—one of the props. I wrapped it around my shoulders and hugged it across my chest. “Thanks. I’ll try to get it back to you.” I nodded in the direction of Thorn’s exit. “She’s crazy.”

  “I can see that.”

  He hurled the canvas flap open to a sea of hats and bonnets and parasols. They bobbed and swayed together like corks on water with the occasional dirty leather miner’s hat popping up between. Thorn and the boys had disappeared. My ring. Was gone.

  STEPPING out into the sunshine, I skimmed over the chaotic scene. A face came at me, sweating rivers under a black hat. In a second, he would be close enough for me to catch a whiff of cheese and spot slimy drips rolling onto his wool coat. The hands of a small girl and boy wedged into his. I tilted away from the sun, rushing from Doctor Withers as fast as I could. I made myself small, pushing and shoving through the crowd.

  I was moving in raggedy circles. My feet hurt and my body was sweaty. My cheeks felt sunburned. I stopped under a tree, out of breath and lost.

  “Charming girl, has your father misplaced you?”

  Another voice slurred something into my ear. Lurching miners caught me from either side, breathing alcohol and tobacco fumes into my face. I knocked away a dirty hand that was slinking up around my waist and wacked at a short man whose smirking face pushed an inch away from mine.

  “Really?” I tried backing away, but the tree stopped me. I was trapped.

  “Aww, now. I just want a little kiss.” The tall one lunged. I socked his filthy hand off my neck and bunched up my fist, slugging his stomach. The other one wrenched my arm. I leaned down and bit him. He screamed and fell backward. The shawl had fallen to the ground, my open neckline like candy to their leering, bloodshot eyes.

  “Leave the young lady alone, Hodge! You too, Duffy.” Another miner had come along and snatched my shawl off the ground. He caught my arm and led me from danger. “You can hit! But, you should not be walking alone, miss. Not a good idea today. Too many eager men drifting about.”

  “Eager is an understatement.” I fi
xed the shawl back around my shoulders and took in my savior. His face was gentle and his hands were clean. “Thank you. I’m trying to find a certain stall. Can you help me? The fortune-teller? Her curtains are red and white striped.”

  He chuckled. “You’re too young to need your fortune told.”

  “I have an appointment. I’m in serious trouble.”

  Up the path, Hodge and Duffy had stopped passing the glass bottle around. They stabbed at each other’s chests. Their words escalated in volume.

  The miner looked away from them, back to my welted and scabbed face. His eyes touched on my torn collar. “All right, then. I’ll escort you. I saw it that-a-way.” He held my arm, tunneling an opening through the masses.

  I kept my head down and covered my hair with the shawl. “I had no idea Monte Cristo had so many people.”

  “Besides the hoity-toity townsfolk, the men have all come out of their mines. Working underground and digging in hard rock with just a flicker of light for months on end turns some men wild. Like our Hodge and Duffy.”

  “Am I some hoity-toity townsfolk?”

  “Yes, you surely are, miss. A pleasant one, though.”

  He walked me up and around and finally to the red-and-white curtains. Voices murmured inside. A small sign tied to a pole next to the tent flap read: WITH CUSTOMER, PLEASE WAIT.

  “Do you want me to stay with you?”

  “No, thanks. I’m safe here. I really appreciate you taking care of me. What’s your name?”

  “Jimmy Barrows, miss.”

  “Jimmy, if someone asks if you saw me, please say no.”

  “Our secret, then. I sure hope you find what you’re searching for.” He tipped his dirty hat and left me under Leroux’s sign.

  I sat down in a rickety wooden chair, flapped dirt off my hem, and tried to straighten the front of my dress. I leaned my head back in the sun, my sore feet hot in Emma’s long stockings and shoes. The air sizzled—perfect weather for shorts and flip-flops. Even if I had a thousand years, I would never get used to the clothes. I sighed and tried to push my blistering misery away, swatting at a fat fly with rainbow-colored wings buzzing around my nose. “I hope I see you in amber someday, you stupid bug.”

  “Hello, please come in.” Leroux stood above me, just in time. The thought of my grandmother’s ring on Thorn’s hand had sent me sinking into a black pit of despair.

  A well-dressed lady with peacock feathers in her hair emerged from the darkened tent and blinked into the bright sunshine. She snapped open a flowered parasol before walking away.

  “I don’t have any money, Leroux. But that man with me last night will come and pay you. I promise.”

  “I understand.” She held the flap open and motioned me to a round table. Her eyes traveled across the hand imprint she had seen yesterday. She sat down opposite me and took in my torn dress. “Another bad day, my dear?”

  “Yes, horrible. I can tell you about my problem—”

  “Shush.” She put a slender finger to my lips. “No talking now. Let me get to know you in my own way.”

  She moved a brass clock to a small desk in the back and set it down next to three brown-and-white photos in tarnished silver frames. She sat down again, held my hands, and closed her eyes. Her breathing slowed.

  Except for the murmuring of people walking past the tent, the ticking clock and our steady breath were the only sounds. Her eyeballs rolled around under their lids. Perspiration dotted her forehead. Her lips quivered and her hands trembled.

  Her eyes flew open. “I knew you were special! You are a time traveler!”

  I nodded. Like Simeon, someone else could see me.

  “You are from the future. Many years into the future.”

  “One hundred and twenty years.”

  “You want to know how to go home.”

  “They’re sending me to school in Baltimore tomorrow. I can’t go. I have to stay in Monte Cristo. I’m sure my way back is here.”

  She ran her hand down my cheek. “She struck you. She tore your dress. Someone who calls herself your mother.”

  “Yes.”

  “What is your name, child?”

  “Sonnet McKay.”

  “Sonnet. Little poem. What a lovely name.”

  I wanted to climb into her lap.

  She got up and glided around the room. She stopped and held one of the photos, lifting the spotted image out in front of her. “Before she died, my momma told me she met a time traveler once. In the waning days of President Lincoln’s war, a man from the future found her. He somehow heard about my momma and came all the way from New Orleans to the plantation and our poor little cabin. Just an itty girl I was then. She probably sent me outside while they spoke. Wouldn’t have wanted to trouble my dreams with their fearsome talk. I have wondered about her dying words and waited for a visitor of my own, as she promised I would have someday. It has finally happened. It appears your world has bumped up against ours, Sonnet, and we have somehow come together in this high mountain town.”

  I watched her still, slim back draped in the ruby dress, talking to her momma’s photo and getting used to the idea of me.

  She turned, smiling and believing. “You have good instincts, my girl. You cannot go to Baltimore. The way back to your time is here in Monte Cristo.”

  “Can you see my future, Leroux? Do I go home?”

  “The same way you came, you shall return.”

  “The closet?”

  Leroux’s hands reached for mine again. “I see a closet, yes . . . for both of you. Somehow the same closet. Someone else searches for a way back. Your destinies are intertwined. She is struggling, too.”

  “Emma? Someone like me?”

  “Someone like you. Someone very much like you. They are here in Monte Cristo, Sonnet, right now, hunting for a way to get you home.”

  Of course, they were. And Emma was with them. I closed my eyes and imagined my family right here. Right here with me. I swallowed down the love that had caught in my throat and held on tight to Leroux’s words. “When?”

  “You will know it when the time comes. Have faith, child. Everything you need to know is already inside you.”

  I smiled and hugged her. “It must be true. Simeon said the same thing—”

  The flap burst open. A small figure stood in front of us and gasped for breath.

  “Kerry! How did you know I was here?”

  “Tor said I might find you at the fortune-teller. They are scouring the fair for you, Sonnet. Mister Sweetwine has gone for the sheriff. We must accelerate our plan.” She tossed me the leather bag. “Change now. I’ll be up the road to the right. Follow me but stay thirty paces behind. I will lead you to Tor and the horses waiting beyond the fairground.”

  “Kerry, wait. On the envelopes, write, ‘Emma’s closet, same as before.’ And Kerry . . . Thorn stole my ring.”

  She nodded and ducked back through the flap.

  I dropped the shawl and stepped out of my clothes. I towed on the flannel shirt and baggy jeans, tightening the belt around my waist. Leroux helped me stuff my hair into the hat. I slung the leather bag over my shoulder with the corduroy jacket still inside.

  Leroux gathered the clothes from the floor and threw them into a chest. “Your man friend owes me nothing. I now have a fine new dress.”

  “A dress that needs major fixing. And the shawl belongs to the photographer here at the fair. Take it to him if you can and tell him you found it in the dirt.”

  I clung to her and kissed her cheek. Jasmine lingered on her skin and in her hair, and I knew that scent would remind me of her until the day I died. “Thank you, Leroux.”

  Her smile was a beautiful promise. “You are stronger than you know, Sonnet. It has been an honor meeting you. Godspeed, my dear girl, my little poem.”

  Leroux held the red-and-white flap. I ducked out, blinking at the sudden sharp light. With the hat low on my head, I followed thirty steps behind Kerry, away from the Ice Caves Fair and up the narrow path to
Tor.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Emma

  2015

  Emma, loving every minute of their gypsy existence, watched from the riverbank as her friends splashed around in the river while the early evening sun still burned at them through the trees.

  Niki and Evan called to her, “C’mon, Emma. Get in the water.”

  She had never had so much attention. It filled her up, stuffed her full. She knew now that love doesn’t just seep away. There was enough to go around for everyone. What you gave returned tenfold. A lesson her mother had never learned.

  Waving her hand, she promised she would come soon, wanting another minute by herself to gaze into the pure green water. She saw, instead of river rocks, a moving picture, like a modern movie playing in her head.

  The Ice Caves Fair would be this very weekend. Ladies and gentlemen and their children would sit right here at the river’s edge in their Sunday-best clothes, picnicking and cooling themselves in the shade. After a time, they would make their way down the hill to town and join the teeming crowd. The entire Monte Cristo population, and inhabitants from the surrounding areas, would wander here and there, open parasols shading the ladies from the hot summer sun. There would be food and games and interesting people who brought their talents and set up in tents, counting on the public to pay for their services.

  Tor and Emma had planned to secretly meet and steal some time for themselves. For a second and in a panic, Emma almost forgot what Tor looked like and searched the water for Rapp. She spotted him jumping off a partially submerged boulder, suspended in the air and holding his long arms around his folded legs. He roared, “Cannonball!” before he landed with a deep plunge next to Evan’s waving arms and laughing face.

  Emma, not for the first time, thought about Rapp and his bloodline reaching all the way back to Tor. She and Rapp had not spoken on the subject since the afternoon she had been found out. Everything had returned to normal between them. But she knew they both thought about it. And here she was again—wondering. Before she could get too deep into those thoughts, she pushed them away. As if she’d banged a wardrobe door shut, Emma doused any further contemplation of Rapp.