I was so deep in thought that I smacked right into a woman coming out of a shop. She started to lose her footing and I reached out and caught her before she fell. Her body felt frail under all those layers of clothing. Once I managed to get her safely on her feet her white eyes met mine and I almost lost my balance.
Miss Crabtree.
Chapter 20
The Wayfarer
“You should watch where you are going. I know your troubles seem grave but if you lose sight of your path you really may have trouble following it.” She wasn’t scolding, simply stating fact.
“I’m so sorry I bumped into you.” At the same time I was so relieved to see her I wanted to throw my arms around her frail little body and hug her.
“I should think relieved is more what you should be. Heaven knows I am.” No wonder people thought she was crazy. She had a way of speaking your mind and knowing your thoughts that gave me the chills.
“How do you do that? How do you know so much about me?”
“Well, I may not see but I am a good listener. But let’s not talk here, dear. Soon that dog that’s been following you will come looking. Why don’t we go somewhere more private?” She took my arm and led me down a narrow alleyway, away from the crowds beginning to take notice of us.
For a blind woman she was incredibly quick. She was continuously clucking with her mouth and I wasn’t sure if it was some sort of nervous tic or just sheer excitement. Within minutes she led me through a complex route to the back door of what seemed to be a large three-story townhouse. At first I thought maybe she worked in this house, as the entrance we used was clearly meant for the staff. Just before we came to the stairs, a butler dressed up in his long coat tails joined us from the kitchen.
“Good afternoon, madame.” He bowed respectfully.
“Ah, George, would you be a dear and have Annabel bring some tea to the parlor?” she said, hardly even pausing before heading up the stairs.
“Certainly, madame,” he called after us.
When we came through a narrow door at the top of the staircase we walked into the main floor of the house.
“Is this your house?” I found it hard to mask my surprise.
“It’s where I live for now. So yes, I suppose it’s mine.”
She led me to a beautiful little room with light pink walls and gold-trimmed woodwork, sort of a small version of the main sitting room in the Dormer House. The fireplace was done in carved marble. The corner window was rounded and there was a little table with two chairs tucked perfectly into that space. From there you could see the street below. It was much quieter than the main street but still had a fair bit of traffic, mostly horses and the odd carriage clunking along the cobbled street below.
As soon as we took a seat Annabel walked in with a tray of tea and biscuits. My stomach instantly started to rumble as I hadn’t thought to eat before setting off. Annabel was just a girl of maybe sixteen with dark hair and a petite figure. In this time she was probably considered scrawny. Once she was completely out of earshot Miss Crabtree turned her unsettling white eyes on me again.
“So you’re in a bit of a pickle.” She cut straight to the chase.
I wasn’t sure how to respond. Could she be trusted? My instincts told me yes but still I decided to err on the side of caution.
“Tell me why you say that,” I said while I prepared my tea.
“Are we going to beat around the bush then? Are you not the one seeking me out?” She poured milk into her own tea.
She had a point. I didn’t exactly have oodles of time to waste and this woman was as sharp as a tack.
“I’m still trying to make sense of everything that’s happened to me these last few days. Where do I even start?”
“Start at the beginning.” She stirred milk into her tea and then looked to me.
“Well, one second I was on a bicycle and the next I was…”
“No, we’ll get to that. What do you know about your family?”
“Oh.” I had no idea how any of that was relevant, but decided to appease the old woman whose help I was desperate for. “My father was from Northern California and my mother was from here, actually, and…”
“I see.” She seemed to be making some sort of mental calculation. “That’s where it starts, then. You are a rare breed, Miss Emma. Not many can do what you can. Your mother would have been the carrier, as it is always passed from the matriarch.” She seemed to be mumbling to herself now. “Did she have sisters?”
“What? What was passed on to me?” I felt completely lost.
“You have no idea, do you? Is this the first time this has happened to you?”
“Yes. What do you mean, first time? What is this?”
“My dear, you are a Wayfarer.” Her sightless eyes lit up like she was delivering good news. “Didn’t your mother ever tell you?”
“A what? What does that even mean?” My hand had stopped stirring my tea and hovered frozen above it.
“It’s what we—and by we, I mean a very small group of us—call someone who has the ability to go from place to place unhindered by any fourth-dimensional boundaries. That, my dear, is a Wayfarer. You may know of it by other names, perhaps.”
I took an extra moment to allow her words to soak in. A time traveler? That was ridiculous.
“How would my mother have known?” My mother had always told me I was special, but didn’t every mother say that to their children? Surely something this big would have fallen out of the realm of ‘special’ and been classified in the ‘extraordinary’ category. If my mother had known, then wouldn’t she have felt the need to pass on this little tidbit?
“She would have been one too, along with any sisters she might have had. What was her family name?”
“Farrar was her maiden name.” Now I was trying to remember if she’d talked about any family. I vaguely remembered talk of a sister. If my mother had been a Wayfarer herself, how come she had never traveled? Or had she? “How could you possibly even know this?” Who was this woman? Was she one herself?
“When I told you I couldn’t see but I could listen, that is what I do.” Miss Crabtree took a sip of tea and pursed her lips, as it was still too hot to drink. “When a bat flies through the air at night searching for food, he uses his ears to guide him because he does not see. He hears the vibrations which tells him where things are.”
“Is that what you were doing in the alleyway? With that clucking?” I interrupted. It was the most unusual thing I’d ever seen.
“Oh, that.” She chuckled. “A dear friend showed me that little trick. It’s called echolocation. Yes, that’s certainly part of it, but for me, people also give off a certain vibration which tells me a great deal about them.”
“Okay, but what makes you think I’m a Wayfarer or whatever you called it?”
“Well, I have met a few others and all of you have had the same type of vibration. Think of it like meeting a hummingbird. If you could hear his wings beating you would be able to differentiate him from a pigeon, for instance, if you knew what to listen for.” Miss Crabtree had moved on to the biscuits and I followed suit. I didn’t feel I could take in anything more on an empty stomach. “You have a very unique vibration that sounds like a high-pitched hum, so strong that I can feel it when I stand close enough.” She brushed away crumbs from her lips as she spoke.
“Really?” Weren’t old people notoriously hard of hearing? Mind you, in the realm of time travel, maybe super-hearing wasn’t completely out there. “So if you know so much about what I am, do you also know how I get back?” The clock above the mantel was ticking loudly and I was reminded that I didn’t have too much more time. I needed to get back to Dormer House soon before someone noticed I had disappeared.
Miss Crabtree’s lips were still pursed in thought as she considered my question. “I’m not sure, dear. Emily used to think it had something to do with big bouts of energy. She called it electricity, I believe, but that was just one of the triggers.” She
jumped out of her chair like an agile kitten suddenly in search of something. “That reminds me.”
“Emily? Who is she? Is she a friend of yours?”
Now Miss Crabtree blushed a bit.
“We were a little more than friends, dear.” She winked at me. “In her time she said it was quite common, you know, and that women were even allowed to marry each other. Can you believe that?” She gave a little schoolgirl giggle and seemed more surprised by that little detail than the fact that her lover was a time traveler, or Wayfarer, as she called it. She found what she was looking for and brought the small wooden box over to our table. It was only marginally smaller than a shoe box, with a sturdy-looking lock on the front.
“So you know someone else from my time?” Same-sex marriage was a fairly recent event in the future I was from.
My mind was being blown in so many directions. It was liberating to finally be able to talk to someone about this. I hardly paid attention as Miss Crabtree pulled a small key from a chain around her neck and opened the lock.
“Ah, that’s what I wanted.” She spoke softly to herself as she reached in and took out some sort of black crystal on a thin leather string. “Here, you’ll need this.” She placed the necklace in front of me.
“What kind of stone is this?” I touched the rough edges of the crystal carefully, half expecting it to have special powers.
“It’s called tourmaline. Emily thought that the weak electric current that flows through it suppresses electromagnetic fields around you. She felt that it protected Wayfarers against the negative effects of travel and even helped them have more control of it.” Her white eyes were misty.
“Thank you,” I said.
Miss Crabtree pulled a small notebook out of the box and slid it over towards me.
“What’s this?”
“It was Emily’s last journal. You may find some of the answers you’re looking for in there.” I could tell this was difficult for her. “You can’t keep it, but you may borrow it,” she added quickly.
“I’ll make sure I get it back to you. What about Emily? Where is she? Did she make it back?”
“Emily Crouch was her name when I met her.” Miss Crabtree’s expression changed. “I don’t know for sure if she made it back, but I do know that when I met her it was not her first time traveling.”
“You mean she’d done it more than once?” It had never occurred to me that someone would want to go through this experience multiple times. “Could she control it?”
“She was convinced there was a way. Maybe her journal would shed some light on that for you. She always wrote things down for me because my memory isn’t what it used to be.”
“How long was she stuck here?” The first prickle of alarm echoed through my body, giving me the beginning of a headache.
Miss Crabtree got very quiet and I figured that she was having difficulty remembering.
“Eight months and three days.” A single tear welled up in her right eye but it never fell, it just hovered there threatening to fall.
Eight months? I could be here for that long? Panic wound its way through me like an intrusive vine and the tips of my fingers lost all circulation. The tick-tock of the clock felt loud and menacing, like it was aware of its own irony. How could I survive here for that long? It would be only a matter of time before I found myself homeless.
“Don’t go getting your knickers in a knot.” Miss Crabtree had gone back to her bluntness. “When she traveled before it only lasted days or weeks. She wanted to stay here. She was convinced she could control it. That’s why she always wore that stone around her neck.” She made a motion toward the crystal she’d just given me. “She might have succeeded if things had turned out differently.”
What things?
I wanted to press the old woman but the wind seemed to have left her sails and she looked tired and run down.
“Be very careful to leave things just as you found them.” She seemed quite concerned with the last bit and looked at me with a serious expression. “Just as you found them.”
Her tone had become much more serious, but I wanted to hear more about Emily. Obviously she would have come from roughly the same time period as I had.
“What happened to Emily?” I watched a cloud gather over Miss Crabtree and realized that I had probably asked the wrong question. Once again my curiosity got ahead of my brain. It was kind of like asking a woman who couldn’t have children if she planned to have them.
“She tried to change things.” Her white eyes were unblinking.
This sounded rather ominous. I didn’t want to seem insensitive, so I simply waited for Miss Crabtree to come out of her melancholy.
“She told me you would seek me out, you know.”
Her words sent icy fingers down my spine. How could that even be possible? I certainly didn’t know an Emily Crouch. Did she know me?
Chapter 21
The Tunnel
Leaving Miss Crabtree’s townhouse, I hurried along the busy road towards the Good Intent. I hadn’t expected to stay so long but Miss Crabtree had insisted I have some food before setting off. Now street vendors were backing up their booths for the day and patrons hurried along the winding roads and alleys for supper.
Guests would already be arriving soon for the ball and it would be difficult to slip in unnoticed, especially looking the way I did. Every time I turned a corner I dreaded being spotted by Harris, who might very well be combing the town for me.
Angus whinnied so loud when he heard my voice it was embarrassing. In reality, I was glad to see him too. Being around horses was always the best way to alleviate my stress. After my mom died I used to spend hours in my favorite horse’s stall, letting his soothing energy calm my emotions. I would sit in the corner of Shorty’s box stall while he chewed his hay, then search my pockets for hidden treats or remnants of sugar cubes.
After paying the groom, I mounted and trotted off towards Dormer House. The sun was getting low but it was nowhere near dark yet. It was that perfect time of summer when days felt like they went on forever. We kept a steady trot, occasionally breaking into a canter when we hit an open stretch.
Everything Miss Crabtree had said played over in my mind. The term Wayfarer, she explained, meant traveler. I was a time traveler. Suddenly the gravity of that hit me. It was simultaneously exciting and terrifying. Figuring out how to navigate this knowledge would be tricky. She knew it was possible to get back, but she wasn’t entirely sure how. Once she’d done a little more digging she promised to get back to me. At least that was something and it was comforting to finally have someone know my secret. A small weight had been lifted off my shoulders. Living a lie as I had for the last few days was becoming more and more difficult. I’d struggled to keep my story straight, especially with the countess watching my every move and questioning my every response.
Emily, it turned out, was an English woman from the North. She was from the same area my mother was from, just outside Manchester. Miss Crabtree wouldn’t elaborate on what had happened to her and I didn’t want to press the issue. At least not yet. How this woman could possibly know anything about me was unclear. Miss Crabtree seemed foggy about the whole thing. Maybe I’d find something useful in the journal.
When I got to the last bend just before Dormer House would come into view, I took a deep breath and tried to prepare myself for the coming evening. With any luck, I could make a brief appearance and then lock myself in my room for the rest of the night and devour Emily’s journal. Lord Henry would no doubt be busy enjoying Jane’s unrelenting adoration, a fact that made me feel ill, even if I had no right to it. Maybe I could score a nice bottle of red to keep me company. That thought cheered me only slightly.
The stable was quiet, with most of the staff assisting up at the house. Jamie, the stable boy, was left alone to tend to the horses. He hopped up as soon as Angus and I walked through the big doors.
“Good evening, miss. We were quite worried about you, we were. Milord t
hought you might have been back ages ago. I was just about to come out looking for you. Glad to see you safely returned though.”
He was already setting about untacking Angus, who was quite anxious to get to the grain in his stall. So Lord Henry knew I’d gone out. I hoped that wouldn’t come back to bite me.
“He was none too pleased that I let you leave on your own, miss.”
“I’m sorry.” I really didn’t want this poor boy in trouble because of me. “I didn’t mean to worry anybody. I must have lost track of time.” I could only hope that few people were aware of my absence. “Tell me, Jamie, do you know a more discreet way into the house? I don’t want to walk through the front door looking like this.”
He took in my outfit. “No, you certainly don’t. I can take you through the tunnels. We’re not meant to use them except in emergencies, but maybe this once.” He finished up with Angus and put him away for the night. “This way, miss.” He grabbed one of the lanterns hanging by the door and lit it. “Hold this a minute, will ya, miss?” He handed the lantern to me so that he could shift a bale of hay over to the side and pull up a trap door from the floor. “Please don’t tell anyone I showed you this. No one’s meant to use it. That’s what me da tells me.”
“I won’t.”
He looked at me skeptically.
“Cross my heart and hope to die.”
This seemed to satisfy him, as only children could be satisfied by pinky swears or heartfelt promises of death.
He took the lantern from me and started down a short, narrow, steep staircase. The temperature immediately dropped several degrees. It smelled musty from a prolonged absence of fresh air, like walking into a crypt, and I wondered if this was really a good idea.
Just when I made it to the bottom several black-winged things went flying by in a panic to get past me and I couldn’t help but scream.
“Shhhhh.” Jamie was eager to keep me quiet. “They’re just bats, miss, they needn’t hurt you.”
The Wayfarer: A Time Travel Romance (The Wayfarer Series Book 1) Page 12
